LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 






'-V^s^ 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



J 



THE 



CURE OF ARS 



BY / 

KATHLEEN O'MEARA 

Author of ^^ Life of Frederic Ozanam,'" ''^ Queen by 
Right Divine,'" ^^ Iza's Story, '^ etc., etc. 



RK PRINTED FROM THE **AVE MARIA' 









THE ''AVE MARIA" 

NOTRE DAME, IND. 



IL// 










U^?)ia>9i 



CONTENTS. 



I. — His Birth and Barly Years ... ... 5 

II.— Military Service— Flight i8 

HI. — He Enters the Seminary — Ordination ... 30 

IV.— His First Mission 35 

v.— He is Sent to Ars ... ... 37 

VI. — He is Miraculously Helped ... 46 

VII. — MiSvSionary Ivabors — "La Providence" ... 52 

VIII.— His Fasts ... ... ... 66 

IX. — Persecuted by the Devil ... 73 

X. — Persecuted by Evil Tongues ... 90 

XI. — His Physical Sufferings ... ... 97 

XII.— His Flight to Dardilly 105 

XIII. — Pilgrimages to Ars ... ... no 

XIV.— His Miracles ... ... 129 i 

XV. — His Sympathy with the Sorrowful, etc. 141 

XVI.—The Curias a Counsellor 14- 

XVII.— Visitors to Ars ... ... 15.^ 

XVIII.— Rehc-Hunters ... ... 15^ 

XIX.— Portraits of theCurc ... ... 159 

XX.— His Will 162 

XXI.— His Kindness and Purity i6.\ 

XXII.— His Austerities ... ... i6N 

XXIII.— His End ... ... ... 17: 



1 



i 



THE CURE OF ARS. 



I. 

HIS BIRTH AND EJARI^Y Y:^ARS. 



.HE holy priest known the world 
over as the Cur6 of Ars, was born 
on the 8th of May, 1786, in the 
pretty village of Dardilly, situated 
in the suburbs of lyyons. His 
parents were peasant farmers, by name Mat- 
thew and Marie Vianney. They had already 
three children ; but this fourth one was, so 
the mother fancied, destined to be something 
remarkable. Vague signs and tokens that she 
had taken note of before the arrival of the 
newcomer received a curious corroboration at 
the moment of the infant* s birth. The good 
woman who had been assisting her rushed 




6 THE CUFi: OF ARS. 

out of the room, and, after gazing up at the 
stars of the *'mild May sky," ran back, 
and with equal folly and imprudence cried 
out: *'This child shall be either a saint or a 
good-for-nothing scamp ! " 

Matthew Vianney laughingly rebuked her 
for her silliness in thus agitating the young 
mother ; but all the same he took note of 
the horoscope, and so did his wife. Many a 
time when she was nursing Jean-Marie the 
mother exclaimed : ' ' My little man is not 
going to be a scamp : he is going to be a 
saint!" In order to work out the fulfilment 
of her prophecy, she began at once to instil 
the love of holiness and the horror of sin 
into the child's mind. The thing he remem- 
bered longest in after life was the expression 
of his mother's face, as she bent over him, 
saying earnestly, "My little Jean-Marie, if I 
were to see thee offend God it would grieve 
me more than anything else on earth." These 
lessons were not lost. At three years old 
Jean-Marie would steal into a corner where 
he thought nobody saw him, and say his 
prayers, repeating out loud over and over 
again those that he had to learn by heart. 
One day he disappeared unperceived, and his 



HIS BIRTH AND KARI.Y YKARS. 7 

mother, after seeking anxiously for a long 
time, discovered him on his knees in a comer 
of the cowhouse, his small hands joined 
devoutly, praying aloud with all his heart. 
She checked the cry of surprise and joy that 
rose to her lips, and gently chid the little 
hermit for having made her uneasy by hiding 
so long. But though he had a saint's in- 
stinctive love for solitary communing with 
God, Jean-Marie would, with the simplicity of 
the little child, pop down on his knees when 
the Angelus bell rang, no matter where he 
was or how many people were present. 

His love for the Blessed Virgin was so 
tender and personal that those who witnessed 
it foresaw extraordinary favors for his soul. 
When he was four years old his mother gave 
him a little wooden statue of the Madonna, 
and he took it to his heart like a living 
friend, fondling it and taking great care of 
it, and going to it for comfort in all his 
childish troubles. If he hurt himself, or if 
any small grief befell him, his brothers and 
sisters had only to give him the little 
Madonna and his tears ceased at once. His 
love for Our Lady had come as naturally to 
him as his love for his mother. In after 



8 THE CURE OF ARS. 

years a priest said to him one day: ''You 
have a great love for the Blessed Virgin?" 
He replied : ' ' I have loved her ever since I 
can remember.'* And to the end of his life 
he recalled the pang it cost him when his 
mother told him to give his Rosary to an 
elder sister who coveted it. '*I obeyed," he 
said ; ' ' but what bitter tears I shed in part- 
ing with my little beads ! ' ' 

But nowhere was his piety so remarkable 
as when assisting at the Holy Sacrifice. The 
pious villagers who saw the tiny creature so 
absorbed in devotion during Mass used to 
remark to his parents : ' ' You must make the 
little lad a priest ; see how he says his 
prayers ! " 

Matthew Vianney owned five cows, an ass, 
and three sheep. Every member of the family 
shared the labor of the farm ; the eldest son 
had charge of the cattle, and when Jean-Marie 
reached the age of seven he was entrusted 
with the care of the three sheep. There was, 
not far from the farm-house, a green valley full 
of shady trees where the blackbirds sang ; a 
noisy stream went babbling through it between 
banks covered with wild flowers. The place 
was called Chante- Merle, and was a favorite 



HIS BIRTH AND KARI.Y YKARS. 9 

resort with several juvenile shepherds, who 
used to take their little flocks there to graze. 
Jean-Marie joined them, and was to be seen 
trotting oflF every morning with his staflF in 
one hand and his precious statue, from which 
he never parted, in the other. He was a 
merry little man, full of innocent fun, and 
always ready to join any game that was 
going, so the others were all fond of him ; 
but his greatest pleasure was to converse 
with Our lyady. He spied out a pretty green 
mound, which struck him as a suitable throne 
for his Madonna ; and having placed her there, 
he asked his companions to kneel down with 
him and say the ''Hail Mary." They con- 
sented ; and when the prayer was finished 
Jean-Marie stood up and began to tell them 
how good and sweet our I^ady was, and how 
they ought to love her. Some of those 
present remembered in after years how startled 
and impressed they were by the extempore 
exhortation of the little preacher. 

He, however, was not satisfied with saying 
a ''Hail Mary,'' and then leaving his Ma- 
donna : he would see his flock safe in some 
grassy pasture, and then return to her and 
remain in prayer for hours. He had found 



lO THE CURE OF ARS. 

out a hollow in an old tree which serv^ed as 
a niche, and here he placed his statue. His 
companions would watch him from a distance 
as he knelt rapt in prayer, his hands some- 
times joined together, sometimes crossed on 
his breast, but his attitude always suggesting 
recollection and modesty. 

There was, altogether, something about 
Jean-Marie which set him apart from other 
children, and they themselves felt this with- 
out understanding it. A little shepherdess of 
seven, named Marian Vincent, was walking 
home with him one evening, and after some 
confidential talk Jean-Marie said: ''I think we 
two should agree very well together.'' — "Yes, 
I think we should,'* replied Marian; "if otu: 
parents will consent, we had better get mar- 
ried. " — " Oh, no ! " exclaimed Jean-Marie, 
with ungallant sincerity; "don't you ever 
count on me for that ! I never mean to do 
that ! ' ' When Marian was an old woman, 
spinning at her cottage door, she used to 
relate with emotion this idyllic reminiscence 
of her childhood, and give it as her opinion 
that even at this tender age Jean-Marie's 
heart was unconsciously vowed away to the 
Divine Spouse. 



HIS BIRTH AND KARI.Y YEARS. II 

Love of the poor was the only rival love 
that divided his young heart with Jesus and 
His Blessed Mother. The child was, it is 
true, in a school where he could scarcely fail 
to learn to love the poor. Matthew Vianney's 
house was open to them like a wayside 
fountain. It was a common thing for as 
many as twenty poor people to turn in there 
of a night for food and shelter. In the 
summer time Matthew housed them in the 
barn ; but on winter nights he would light a 
great fire of fagots in the kitchen, set a big 
pot of potatoes on it, and when they were 
boiled serve them, and divide the meal 
between his children and the poor. When 
the last potato had disappeared he said night 
prayers aloud, and then conducted his guests 
to the hayloft, taking care that they were 
secure from the cold and wind, and as com- 
fortable as his scant accommodation could 
make them. 

The Christian laborer entertained many an 
angel unawares, no doubt, amongst these 
strangers. One cold winter's night there 
knocked at his door a pilgrim who was 
destined one day to shine in the calendar of 
the Church. The traveller who tarries on his 



12 THE CURK OF ARS. 

way through Dardilly is sure to hear, as of 
a great glory that lives in the tradition of 
the village, how, on his way to a neighbor- 
ing shrine, Benedict Joseph Labre slept one 
night under the roof of Matthew Vianney. 

There were often little children amongst 
these wayfaring guests, and Jean-Marie from 
his earliest years learned to devote himself to 
them as his own peculiar charge. He would 
squeeze them into a place near the fire, and 
save his supper that they might eat more 
abundantly ; he would sometimes examine 
their clothes, and if they were ragged or torn 
he would go and coax his mother for some 
of his own to replace them. The love of 
souls, which was one day to bum in him 
like a living flame, was visible too in his 
readiness to teach them the Lord's Prayer 
and the *'Hail Mary." If the elders caught 
him in the act of exercising this sweet 
apostolate, and expressed their admiration, 
the child would blush and slink away quite 
ashamed. 

While the Revolution was raging over 
France, terrorizing the people and persecuting 
the Church, Jean-Marie was quietly learning 
the duties and becoming enamored of the 



HIS BIRTH AND KARLY YKARS. 1 3 

beauty of religion in the school of this 
delightful home life. It was a time when 
every courageous Christian might be called 
upon to exercise a kind of priesthood. Old 
men took the oflSce upon themselves, and, in 
the absence of the priest, gathered the people 
round them to say the Rosary or follow the 
liturgy of the Mass and Vespers. Devout 
women, who had been driven from their 
convents, taught the catechism to children, 
and prepared them for the Sacraments, which 
some brave priest contrived, at peril of his 
life, to come now and then and administer. 
Sister Deville and Sister Combet, two religious 
of the Institute of St. Charles, had the 
happiness of preparing Jean- Marie for his First 
Communion, which he made in a barn, where, 
on the stealthy arrival of a priest, an altar 
was hurriedly prepared and Mass celebrated. 
The boy grew visibly in virtue after this 
great event. He was now large enough to 
take his share of field labor. He found the 
digging hard, for he was a frail lad, and 
lacked ''that vigor which slumbers in the 
peasant's arm." But he supplemented his 
physical strength by constant prayer ; those 
who watched him in the field declared that 



14 THE CURE OF ARS. 

he was always praying ; even when his lips 
did not move, his countenance betrayed the 
devout recollection of one who was absorbed 
in the presence of God. These were happy 
days, to which Jean-Marie always looked back 
with regret. Many a time in after years, 
when oppressed with the accumulated burdens 
of his extraordinary ministry, he was heard 
to murmur as he heaved a sigh, *'0h, how 
happy I was when I had only to look after 
my sheep and dig away with my spade ! ' ' 
His great amusement of an evening, when he 
had done his lesson, was to make an altar 
surrounded by little figures of priests and 
nuns. They were very prettily done, and his 
companions often coveted them, and would 
offer him their toys in exchange ; but the 
only bribe that ever induced him to part with 
them was to offer to do his field-work, and 
so leave him free to go and hear Mass in 
some neighboring place where a priest was 
expected on a given day. For this he was 
always ready to sacrifice his figures and 
miniature candlesticks. 

After the great battle of Marengo the storm 
of the Revolution fell ; peace followed, and 
h e doors of the churches were opened. The 



HIS BIRTH AND KARI.Y YE^ARS. 1 5 



I 

H village of EcuUy, a few miles from Dardilly, 
IP was one of the first to receive back its parish 
priest, and the Vianneys, who had relations 
in the village, attended Mass there regularly 
the moment the worship of God was restored. 
M. Bailey, the priest, was a zealous and 
intelligent man, and quickly singled out Jean- 
Marie as an object of predilection. The 
attraction was mutual ; and the boy, who had 
from his earliest days longed to be a priest, 
soon confided the secret of his vocation to 
M. Bailey, who promised to do all in his 
power to further it. Matthew Vianney and 
his wife were overjoyed at the prospect of 
having their son in Holy Orders, and con- 
sented to make every sacrifice in their power 
to secure this honor to the family. Jean- 
Marie was sent to live at Ecully with a 
relation of his mother's, so that he might 
receive lessons from M. Bailey; and so great 
already was the boy's reputation for piety 
that numbers of persons who knew him only 
by report came forward and offered to con- 
tribute to his maintenance. A pious widow 
of the village asked leave to wash for him, 
and declared that she was thankful to have 
he pretext for going to vSee him at regular 



l6 THE CURfe OF ARS. 

intervals, because of the edification she always 
received from conversation with him. 

He was not a clever boy. He had extra- 
ordinary trouble in committing anything to 
memory, and having overcome the first diflS- 
culties in reading and writing, it seemed as 
if he could get no further. He was dull of 
understanding, and, in spite of M. Bailey's 
skill and patience, his progress was so slow 
that at times the poor child was ready to 
despair of ever learning enough to pass for 
the priesthood. When he felt thus faint- 
hearted he would ask leave to go to Dardilly 
and see his parents ; but M. Bailey, who 
saw the beauty of the boy's soul and believed 
in the solidity of his vocation, never granted 
the permission. ^ ' Why do you want to go 
home, my child ? " he would say. ^ ^ Your 
parents, seeing you so hopeless, will conclude 
that their sacrifices are being thrown away, 
that it is time lost leaving you here to study, 
and they will call you home. You must 
not expose your vocation to that danger." 
Spurred on by these words, Jean-Marie would 
take heart of grace, and, redoubling the 
fervor of his prayers, set to work afresh. 

But neither prayer nor perseverance seemed 



HIS BIRTH AND KARI.Y YKARS. 1 7 

able to overcome his natural deficiencies ; he 
continued hopelessly dull. At last, finding all 
his own efforts unavailing, he resolved to 
give them up, and have recourse to purely 
supernatural agencies. With the approval of 
his director, he made a vow to go on a 
pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Francis Regis, 
the apostle of Vivarais, and there implore help 
to acquire learning enough to pass his exami- 
nations for the priesthood. He set out on foot, 
and begged his way to lyouvesc. God accepted 
his desire for humiliation by allowing him to 
be treated with great contumely all along the 
road. He had not the appearance or manner 
of a real beggar, and when he asked for 
alms or shelter he was abused as an idle 
vagabond, and turned rudely away. Thus 
did he accomplish his journey to the tomb 
of the saint in true mediaeval pilgrim fashion. 
St. Francis, however, was not deaf to his 
petition, and from this time forth his dullness 
disappeared ; his intelligence was quickened in 
a way that astonished his master and all who 
witnessed the change, and he found no further 
diJBficulty in getting through the tasks that 
were set him. 



1 8 THK cure: of ARS. 



II. 



HIS MILITARY SERVICE — FI^IGHT. 

At the end of five years of arduous work 
and steady progress in every virtue, Jean- 
Marie's vocation seemed so solid and devel- 
oped that M. Bailey went to I^yons and had 
him entered as an aspirant to the priest- 
hood, a step which exempted the youth from 
military service. Owing to some unexplained 
circumstance, however, his name was not 
inscribed on the registers. Three years went 
by without any claim being made on him; 
but just as he was going up to his exami- 
nations in philosophy, it being found that he 
did not figure on any list, the authorities, 
without further inqvdries, sent him his recruit- 
ing papers one morning, with orders to start 
for Bayonne. 

War was over; the army and the country 
were resting on the laurels that had cost 
such an amount of human slaughter; there- 
fore the recruiting papers fell on Jean-Marie 
and his family like a thunderbolt out of a 
clear sky. Matthew Vianney rose, however, 
to meet the trouble with equal courage and 
generosity. He determined to buy a substi- 



HIS MII.it ARY SKRVICE: — FI^IGHT. 1 9 

tute for his son. They found one, and Jean- 
Marie was set free at the enormous cost of 
three thousand francs. But just as the family 
were beginning to rejoice over the rescue so 
dearly bought, the substitute walked back 
with the money, and said he could not make 
up his mind to go a-soldiering. 

The shock of this disappointment, coming 
after the happiness of the escape, so affected 
Jean-Marie that he fell seriously ill. The 
military authorities ordered him to be carried, 
suffering as he was, to the hospital at Lyons, 
where he remained fifteen days, edifying 
everybody by his patience and piety. On the 
13th of November he was considered strong 
enough to bear the fg^tigue of the journey, 
and was sent off in a cart for the rest of the 
way. But the bumping of the cart, on which 
he lay half frozen, brought on a fresh attack 
of fever, and they were compelled to drop 
him on the way, at Roanne. Here he lay 
six weeks in bed in the hospital. During 
that time he won the hearts of the Sisters 
and the doctors by his piety, gentleness and 
patient courage. They nursed him with the 
tenderest kindness, and left nothing undone 
to hasten his recovery, although it was to 



20 THE CURB OF ARS. 

be the signal for his departure. And no 
sooner, indeed, was it possible for him to 
leave than an order came for him to join a 
detachment that was being formed at Roanne 
to proceed to Spain. 

Jean-Marie bade a sorrowful farewell to his 
kind friends, and before going for his ticket 
went into a church to say his Rosary. In 
the fervor of his devotions the unlucky recruit 
forgot that time was flying, and when he 
presented himself at the office he was an 
hour too late. Captain Blanchard, the officer 
in command, poured out a volley of abuse 
on him, called him a sneak and a coward, 
and threatened to send him in chains to 
Bayonne as a deserter. Jean-Marie tried in 
vain to make himself heard above the storm 
of invectives; but two other officers who were 
present interfered, and made their angry 
superior listen to reason. ''If the poor fellow 
had meant to desert," they urged, ''he would 
not have come here for his ticket." This 
argument calmed Captain Blanchard, and he 
consented to sign the recruit's papers. He 
then bade him set out immediately after his 
corps, and march in double-quick time so as 
to overtake it. 



HIS MII.ITARY SKRVICK — FI.IGHT. 21 

Jean-Marie went forth with the determina- 
tion to obey this order, and for the first 
mile or so stepped out courageously. But he 
was still weak ; his strength soon began 
to flag, and he felt very forlorn as he 
tramped along the lonely road. The life of 
a soldier appeared to him more and more 
odious and intolerable, and his soul yearned 
for the priesthood as it had never done 
before. There rose before him a picture of 
the lads of his own age whom he had seen 
dragged from their homes as he had been; 
some had never returned; others had come 
back with a chain round their neck, cursing 
their evil doom. These were deserters who 
had been caught and were being taken to be 
shot. It seemed to Jean-Marie, in his present 
mood, as if to be shot were an enviable 
doom compared to spending the best years of 
his youth in the companionship of brutal, 
ignorant and impious men, as these soldiers 
had always appeared to be; he contrasted 
this with the life of prayer and blessed ser- 
vice that was to have been his, and his 
heart felt like breaking at the thought of 
having lost it forever. 

In his despair he turned to Mary, his 



22 THE CURB OF ARS. 

unfailing help in trouble, and began his 
Rosary, praying aloud as he walked. Scarcely 
had he finished the first five decades when 
there appeared suddenly on the road a 
stranger, who accosted him, and, almost in 
the words of Our I^ord to the disciples on 
their way to Emmaus, asked him why he 
went thus sorrowful. Jean-Marie, glad of the 
companionship, related his story — how he had 
hoped to be a priest, and was now going 
instead to be a soldier. The stranger expressed 
great sympathy for him. Seeing how weak 
he was, he insisted on carrying his knap- 
sack; and, drawing him on to speak freely 
of his home, his altered prospects, his lost 
vocation, he led him across the fields farther 
and farther from the main road. They had 
gone many miles before Jean-Marie noticed 
that they had left the highway. He was 
now footsore and quite spent with fatigue ; 
but on they tramped, his friendly companion 
cheering him with kindly and pleasant con- 
versation. Night closed in, and still on they 
went. At last, near ten o'clock, they stopped 
at a wayside cottage. Here the stranger 
knocked for admittance; the inmates had gone 
to bed, but they presently answered him 



HIS MILITARY SKRVICK — FI^IGHT. 23 

through the closed door, and after a low 
and rapid parley, which was inaudible to 
Jean-Marie, his deliverer bade him good- 
night, walked quickly away, and vanished 
in the darkness. Jean-Marie never saw him 
again, and never heard who he was. 

Meantime the door of the lonely cottage 
was unbarred, and the wayfarer was bidden 
to enter; and not only was food placed before 
him, but the hospitable inmates insisted on 
his lying down in their bed, while they 
went to finish their night's rest in the hay- 
loft. Next morning they shared their frugal 
meal with him, then frankly told him they 
were too poor to continue hospitality toward 
him, but that they would take him to a 
place where he would be in perfect safety. 
Jean-Marie accepted the offer. He now felt 
as if his own destiny had been taken out of 
his hands, and that he must jiist let himself 
drift, trusting to Providence. 

The village of Noes was situated at the 
entrance of the great forest of the Madeleine, 
on the borders of the provinces of Loire and 
AUier. His kindly host led the deserter thither, 
and, strange as it may seem, took him straight 
to the mayor of the commune, told him of 



24 THE CUR^ OF ARS. 

the poor conscript's misadventure, and entreated 
him to protect him from the pursuit of the 
law. It was a comical request to make to 
the local magistrate; but the good man was 
touched with pity for the gentle, delicate- 
looking lad, and consented to join in the 
conspirac3^ He assured Jean- Marie that he 
need fear nothing at Noes, and at once went 
with him to an excellent woman, called Mere 
Fayot, a widow who was held in loving 
respect by all the village, and in whose house 
the deserter was sure to be safe. She received 
him, in truth, with most motherly kindness, 
and promised to look on him as a son. 
The mayor told him he might now consider him- 
self perfectly safe, even — which was altogether 
unlikely — supposing the police would dream 
of coming to look for him in this out-of-the- 
way village. But the kind magistrate was 
not in reality as certain of this as he feigned 
to be. The fact of Noes being so isolated 
in the midst of the mountains made it pre- 
cisely a tempting retreat for a deserter, and 
the agents of the law were likely enough to 
suspect Jean- Marie of having taken refuge 
there. In order the better to conceal his 
identity, he took the name of Jerome, and 



HIS MII.ITARY SKRVICK — FI.IGHT. 25 

showed himself abroad as little as possible. 

Nothing could exceed Mere Fay of s kind- 
ness to him; she made no distinction between 
him and her own children, and the gratitude 
and aflfection with which she inspired young 
Vianney were boundless. He used to declare 
in his old age that he had known many 
saintly men and women in his life, but that 
he had never met two more beautiful souls 
than Mere Fayot and M. Bailey. 

After a little while the fugitive grew bolder 
and almost forgot the sword that was sus- 
pended over his head. He worked in every 
possible way in order to make himself useful 
to his kind hostess and her friends. He 
asked leave of the mayor to do duty as 
schoolmaster, and the offer was thankfully 
accepted. He fulfilled this office with such 
success as to win the hearts of the village 
children and the warm gratitude of their 
parents. The Fayot children soon came to 
look upon him as a saint. They said of him 
that he seemed to be always praying ; and 
the eldest son, who shared his bed, when he 
awoke in the night used to hear him mur- 
inuring prayers to himself The pious school- 
master, however, was full of activity and 



26 THE cure: of AKS. 

ready to put his hand to any work. When 
the fine weather returned the school grew 
empty; all hands were wanted in the fields, 
and ''M. Jerome" took his place amongst 
the laborers, and worked as hard as any of 
them. 

But all this time the eyes of the police 
were abroad, and periodical descents were 
made on Noes in pursuit of the runaway. 
Ever>^body there knew his secret now, and 
everybody was on the watch to protect him. 
When it was known that a search was being 
made in the neighborhood, scouts were posted 
on a high point at either end of the village, 
and the approach of the police was announced 
by signals, so that the fugitive had time to 
get out of the way. One day he hid in a 
hayloft over a cowhouse, and the search lasted 
so long that he was nearly smothered under 
the hay. The weather was hot, and he was 
afraid to move ; for the searchers were close 
by, and seemed spurred to unusual vigilance 
by fresh suspicion. He suffered so severely 
during this ordeal that he made a promise 
to God never to complain of anything for 
the rest of his life. 

Jean-Marie's parents remained in grievous 



HIS MII.ITARY SERVICE — FLIGHT. 27 

anxiety about him for some time, for he did 
not dare to let them know where he was. 
But he was so unhappy thinking of their 
distress that at last Mere Fayot agreed to 
go to Dardilly and tell them that he was 
safe. We can easily imagine the welcome 
she, with this good news, received from the 
Vianneys. Their child was safe, well and 
happy ! Everybody loved him and was in 
league to protect him against the cruel police ! 
But Matthew Vianney's paternal joy quickly 
gave way to his strong sense of justice. 
Since the lad was in good health it was now 
his duty to go and join his corps, and relieve 
his family from the ceaseless worry to which 
they had been subjected ever since his deser- 
tion ; for the military authorities, who were 
keeping a sharp lookout after him, were per- 
suaded that his parents knew where he was, 
and were perpetually sending for them and 
putting them to considerable inconvenience 
and expense. 

But good Mere Fayot did not agree with 
Matthew Vianney. '*Your son shall not go 
a-soldiering, ' ' she replied ; ' ' and you shall 
not find out where he is. I will not tell 
you my name, or give you any clue to 



28 THK CUR^ OF ARS. 

where I live ; and if you find out, I will 
immediately send your son to seek shelter in 
another place much farther off, and every 
soul in the village will keep his secret/' 
Perhaps, in his heart, the worthy man was 
not sorry to be so sturdily opposed and 
circumvented ; at any rate. Mere Fayot went 
away without giving him any information as 
to her dwelling-place. 

Not many months after her visit the recruit- 
ment of 1 8 ID began. Frangois Vianney, a 
younger son, drew a high number ; but as 
everybody was now going to the frontier, and 
he was sure to be soon called out with the 
reserve, his friends advised him to be before- 
hand in answering the appeal, and to enlist 
at once, and thus redeem the family honor 
and rid the house of police and spies. 
Frangois consented, and marched at once for 
the frontier. Strange to say, it was the same 
recruiting officer. Captain Blanchard, who had 
threatened to send Jean- Marie in chains to 
Bayonne, that now used his kindly influence 
to have the deserter's name taken off the list 
of recruits and his bans raised. 

When it was announced at Noes that ' ' M. 
Jerome'' was free the whole village rejoice 



HIS MII.ITARY SERVICE — FI.IGHT. 29 

as for some personal good luck ; but this joy 
quickly gave way to grief when they found 
that he was going to leave them. For no 
sooner did Jean-Marie hear of his pardon 
than he made ready to return to EcuUy in 
order to resume his studies for the priesthood. 
Everybody wanted to give him something as 
a remembrance ; but, taking Mere Fay of s 
advice, the people ended by collecting enough 
money to provide him with a trousseau. The 
village tailor made him a soutane; the good 
wives gave their homespun linen, the young 
girls made it into necessary clothes for him, 
and Mere Fayot presented him with her 
wedding towels, which had never been used. 
Thus equipped by the loving generosity of 
his humble friends, and followed by their 
prayers, Jean-Marie, who had come like a 
thief in the night-time to Noes, went forth 
full of joy and honor from his hiding-place, 
and returned to his parents after an absence 
of fourteen months. 



30 



THE CURE OF ARS. 



III. 



HE ENTERS THE SEMINARY. — HIS ORDINATION. 



No one rejoiced more sincerely over his 
return than Abbe Bailey. He knew better 
than any one what a beautiful soul was 
Jean-Marie's, and he foresaw what a valua- 
ble servant he would be in the Church. He 
was himself quite capable of carrying on the 
young aspirant's studies to their completion, 
but he thought it better that he should 
finish them at the Petit Seminaire of Verri- 
eres. Here Jean-Marie entered on his course 
of philosophy. His natural dullness, which 
had been so great at first as to prevent his 
acquiring the most elementary knowledge, 
though it had been greatly mitigated by the 
intervention of St. Francis, was still an obsta- 
cle to his advancement in the higher studies, 
and he seemed incapable of the intellectual 
effort necessary at this point for carrying him 
successfully through his philosophy. His mas- 
ters grew impatient at his slowness of compre- 
hension, his fellow-students made a butt of 
him, and he had a good deal to suffer. But 
he soon conquered all ridicule and opposition 



HH ENTERS THE SEMINARY. 3 1 

by his angelic sweetness, his humility, his 
prompt obedience, and his piety. His com- 
panions came to admire him as a saint and 
emulate him as the model of seminarists. 

As it often happens, however, there was 
one evil spirit amongst his fellow-students who 
could not bear the sight of Jean Marie's supe- 
riority, and who was filled with bitter envy 
by the praise bestowed on him. This young 
man left nothing undone to annoy the saintly 
youth, until, finding taunts and insults of no 
avail, he had recourse to blows and violence. 
Young Vianney replied by the most unruffled 
patience and charity, and at last fairly con- 
quered his enemy by love, and turned his 
wicked jealousy into a warm friendship. 

After going through his philosophy at Ver- 
rieres, Jean-Marie returned to study theology 
with M. Bailey. Both master and pupil brought 
their whole heart and will to the work; they 
prayed for success with more fervent perse- 
verance even than they studied, and when 
the time came for passing the examination 
M, Bailey felt almost certain of a successful 
result. But God reserved one crowning 
humiliation for his servant. Jean-Marie was 
so intimidated by the cold solemnity of the 



32 THK CURK OF ARS. 

examiners, that he lost his presence of mind, 
forgot everything, blushed, stammered, and 
was turned away with a disheartening verdict 
— pronounced utterly unfit to pass. 

M. Bailey was grievously disappointed, but 
his confidence in God and in Jean-Marie's 
real merit rose above this crushing defeat. 
He went straight to the superior of the Great 
Seminary, and persuaded him to come next 
day, with one of the vicars-general, to the 
presbytery of Ecully, and there put the 
rejected pupil through a second examination. 
This time the candidate came off better. The 
examiners were perfectly satisfied with his 
answers, recognized that he was thoroughly 
well grounded in his theology, and passed 
him on at once to the Great Seminary to 
prepare for ordination. 

Here, as elsewhere, Jean- Marie quickly 
made himself beloved by all, and was regarded 
as a model of virtue. And yet when the 
time came for ordaining him the directors of 
the Seminary hesitated. His tender piety, 
his purity and mortification, his humilit}^ and 
obedience, excited their fullest admiration; 
but his learning was so limited, his aptitude 
for every branch of study so poor, that they 



HB ENTERS THE SEMINARY. 33 

were afraid to confide to him the tremendous 
responsibility of the priesthood. They decided 
that before taking the momentous decision, 
they must consult the diocesan authorities. 
Cardinal Fesch was absent, so they begged 
his Vicar-General, Abbe Courbon, to act as judge. 

When we consider what the subject of all 
this conscientious mistrust was one day to be 
in the Church, — ^when we recall the magnifi- 
cent apostolate he was to fulfil, the glory he 
was to gain for God by his wonderful work 
among souls, — and then think that all these 
blessed results were for a moment jeopardized, 
hanging, as it were, by a hair held by Abb6 
Courbon, we tremble, and wait with bated 
breath as if the sentence were yet in suspense. 

The Vicar-General heard the testimony of 
the learned and pious ecclesiastics who appealed 
to him, and then he put these questions to 
them : 

*'Is the young man devoted to the Mother 
of God? Does he say his beads?" 

''He is a model of piety," was the reply; 
*'he is most tenderly devoted to the Mother 
of God and the Rosary is his favorite prayer." 

''Then I will receive him, and God's 
grace will do the rest." 



34 'THE CURE OF ARS. 

It is only right to add that Abbe Courbon, 
whose discernment of souls and knowledge of 
men were remarkable, had already heard from 
many trustworthy sources about the singular 
piety of young Vianney. M. Bailey, needless 
to say, had been to the fore, and the moment 
he heard that the fate of his beloved child 
was under discussion, had hurried from EcuUy 
to testify in his behalf, and by the weight 
of his authority incline the scales in his favon 
The future Cure of Ars was often heard to 
say: "M. Bailey will have a deal to answer 
for before God for having gone bail for a poor 
dunce like me." M. Bailey, meantime, felt 
this burden lie lightly on him, and when the 
great day of ordination came there was only 
one face in the sanctuary that shone more 
brightly than his: that was the young priest's. 
Those who saw Jean- Marie Vianney on the 
altar-steps of the Cathedral of Grenoble, 
where he was ordained alone, never forgot 
the radiant expression of his countenance as 
he consecrated his life and heart to the ser- 
vice of God. He was in his thirtieth year. 
The date of his ordination was the 9th of 
August, 1 8 15. 



HIS FIRST MISSION. 35 

IV. 

HIS FIRST MISSION. 

No sooner was his dear pupil ordained 
than M. Bailey ha^ened to the Archbishop, 
and asked to have him as his vicar at 
Ecnlly. It was a great joy for both when 
they came together again. The delight of 
EcuUy was equally great. The people already 
looked upon their cure as a saint, and now 
they had a second saint. The presbytery was, 
in truth, a little paradise of virtue. The ven- 
erable pastor and his young disciple vied with 
each other in fasting and penance and every 
kind of austerity. M. Bailey set an example 
of priestly perfection which his pupil strove 
not only to imitate but to j^urpass. It is not 
known for certain where the Abb6 Vianney 
said his first Mass, but it was most probably 
at EcuUy. It is certain that he began there 
his wonderful mission in the confessional, and 
that his first penitent was his master, M. 
Bailey. 

The young priest's marvellous gift for 
directing souls soon became known ; his con- 
fessional was besieged late and early, and 



36 THE CURfi OF ARS. 

people began to come from distant parishes 
to seek consolation and guidance from him. 
His love of the poor was equalled only by 
his love of poverty. He lived on almost 
nothing, and he wore his clothes until they 
fell to pieces and refused to be patched any 
more. In all this he was the worthy disciple 
of M. Bailey, who brought himself to such a 
degree of weakness by fasting that his large, 
nobly-built body could hardly support itself, 
and became so emaciated that his flock sent 
a deputation to the Archbishop, imploring 
him to forbid their pastor to continue his 
merciless austerities. 

These kindred souls were allowed to remain 
together only two years. The Abb6 Bailey, 
worn out with labors and sufferings, and ripe 
for heaven, sickened and died. He bequeathed 
his instruments of penance — a terrible array — 
to his spiritual son, begging him to hide 
them away, and never let any one hear of 
them; ''because," he said, '4f people found 
them after my death they would fancy I had 
done something to expiate my sins, and they 
would leave me in purgatory to the end of 
the world.'' Then, laying his hands upon 
Abb6 Vianney's head, he blessed him ten- 



HE IS SKNT TO AKS. 37 

derly, saying, *' Courage, my child! Continue 
to love and serve our good Master. Remem- 
ber me at the altar. Adieu ! We shall meet 
yonder. ' * After uttering this farewell he closed 
his eyes, and, says M. Vianney, **his beau- 
tiful soul took flight to the angels, and made 
Paradise more joyous.'' 

V. 

HK IS SENT TO ARS. 

The bereaved flock comforted themselves 
with the thought of having another saint in 
their midst, who would be to them a true 
father, as Abbe Bailey had been. But M. 
Vianney, when the Archbishop of Lyons 
offered him the succession of his venerable 
master, refused to accept it. ''I am unworthy 
to fill his place," replied the young priest. 
*'He was a saint. I must go away, and let 
some one more fit come here to serve the 
parish." He was so urgent in his entreaties 
that the Archbishop yielded to them and, two 
months after M. Bailey's death, named Abb6 
Vianney parish priest of the little village of 
Ars. Abb6 Courbon, the Vicar-General of the 
diocese, who had overruled the hesitation of 



38 



THK cure: of ARS. 



the examiners in admitting M. Vianney to 
Holy Orders, said in giving him faculties for 
his new parish: ''There is very little love of 
God at Ars; go and put some there. '^ We 
shall see how this command of his superior 
was obeyed. 

On February 9, 18 18, M. Vianney set out 
toward his unknown parish. The village of 
Dombes, buried in the midst of fields now 
covered with snow, was not easy to find. 
The wayfarer wandered along by the banks 
of the Fontblin until he lost his way. At 
last a little shepherd met him, and led him 
back to the right path. The Cure observed 
the towers of a feudal castle in the distance, 
and asked who lived there. The answer was, 
*' Mademoiselle d'Ars. They call her the 
mother of the poor." — ''That is a beautiful 
name," remarked the priest; and he walked 
on. This amiable lady was almost the first 
acquaintance he made at Ars, and he soon 
discovered that the beautiful name was the 
true expression of a beautiful life. His noble 
parishioner was a type of the grande dame 
of old Catholic France. Her small figure 
was full of grace and dignity; she was 
spirituelle^ clever, and hospitable as a patri- 



HB IS SENT TO ARS. 39 

arch. Her devotedness to the poor made a 
great bond between her and the new pastor,, 
and their souls were soon drawn together in- 
a holy friendship. 

Mademoiselle d'Ars was over sixty years 
of age and delicately framed, but this did 
not prevent her wading up to her ankles in 
snow to early Mass in the winter time. Seeing 
her arrive one wet morning soaked through,, 
the Cure remarked that she ought to have 
some sort of little carriage. ''M. le Cur6, 
the poor can't afford to give me one," was 
the reply. And it expressed admirably the 
nature of her relation toward them. Every 
penny she could scrape from her own neces- 
sities belonged by right, she considered, to 
the poor; but, not content with giving them 
gold and silver, she gave her personal service 
when they needed it: she swept out their 
rooms when they were sick, and even washed 
and cooked for them if they had no one to 
perform these offices. Such a soul was sure 
to appreciate M. Vianney, and she soon held 
him in profound veneration. "Pray hard that 
he may be spared," she would say to the 
poor ; * ' for if he dies we shall never see his 
like again." 



40 THK cure: of ars. 

This valiant woman was a great help to 
the pastor, who soon discovered that there 
was indeed but little piety in his parish. 
There were a few fervent souls who made 
consoling exceptions, but the contrary rule 
was general; the people were addicted to 
sinful ways. M. Vianney's intense devotion 
to the Eucharist was his grand resource in 
this grave and pressing responsibility. He 
resolved to make a crusade for the conversion 
of his erring flock by inaugurating perpetual 
adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. The 
scheme was warmly adopted by Mademoiselle 
d^Ars and a few other devout souls. They 
persuaded some pious young girls to come 
for a quarter of an hour's adoration daily; 
these in turn induced their parents to come, 
and in a short time the little church was 
seldom without a watcher before the taber- 
nacle. One poor laborer was a subject of 
deep consolation and delight to the Cure. 
He used to spend hours on his knees before 
the tabernacle, his eyes fixed on the little 
golden door, but never moving his lips. 
**What do you say to Our Lord all the 
time, my friend?" the Cure asked him one 
day. — ''I say just nothing at all," replied 



HK IS SKNT TO ARS. 4 1 

the simple soul; ''I only look at Him, and 
He looks at me.'* The Cure of Ars loved 
to tell his friends about this simple adorer of 
Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, and would 
dilate on the beauty of his innocent, child- 
like prayer. 

The parish soon began to change its aspect 
under the influence of the pastor's holiness 
and zeal. His exhortations were so ardent 
that the people said of him : ' * He draws our 
souls to God whether we will or no." He 
''beguiled" them into loving the Blessed 
Virgin in spite of their tepidity and sloth. 
One day a group of giddy girls, who had 
reluctantly consented to come to confession, 
were waiting their turn. The Cure came 
unexpectedly out of the sacristy, and said: 
*'My children, let us say our ROvSary." He 
knelt down in the midst of them and began 
to recite it, and their hearts were moved to 
sudden compunction. They wept bitter tears, 
and resolved thenceforth to lead new lives ; 
and vSO fervent was their repentance that the 
Cur6 founded the Confraternity of the Rosary- 
there and then. 

The conversion of tliis parish, where there 
was '\so little love of God," was the grand 



42 THK CURE OF ARS. 

miracle of his life ; but many gracious minor 
ones were wrought in the early days of his 
sojourn there, and began to prepare the way 
for it. The first that is recorded has a 
perfume of the "Little Flowers of St. Francis.'* 
Mademoiselle d'Ars took the Cure a bunch 
of lilies on \l\s fete (St. John's Day); he 
laid them outside the window in the sun, 
and forgot all about them, until eight days 
afterward he saw them there as fresh as if 
they had just been gathered. On some one 
present exclaiming at the wonder, the Cure 
remarked with a smile: "Why, Mademoiselle 
d'Ars must be a saint!" 

But people were beginning to find out 
where the saint was. The Vicomte d'Ars, 
brother of the chatelaine, came to stay at the 
castle, and, being a man of great piety and 
of a spiritual mind, at once recognized the 
sanctity of the 3^oung parish priest. He used 
to say that to see M. Vianney celebrate Mass 
was enough to convert the most obdurate 
sinner. He looked, in truth, like a seraph 
on the altar. Even when saying his breviary 
his face was Ituninous as an angel's; the 
children used to watch him, and they said 
he had a way of turning his face toward the 



r 



HE IS SENT 10 ARS. 43 

tabernacle and smiling, *^as if the good God 
were telling him something pleasant/' Cath- 
erine Lassagne, who was in the service of 
the presbytery, used to hide in a dark comer 
that she might see him at his prayers. 
**Many a time,'' she said, *'I watched him 
until it seemed to me that Our lyord must 
have been visible to him. It made me feel 
such a sinner when I saw him in the early 
dawn on his knees before the tabernacle, his 
wan, worn features wearing such a light on 
them — such an expression — as I never could 
describe ! ' ' 

These long watches before the tabernacle 
were the weapons with which the pastor 
fought and wrestled for the salvation of his 
flock. One of the great enemies he had to 
fight against was that universal one, love of 
amusement. He obtained many signal victo- 
ries over this insidious and powerful demon, 
but never, perhaps, a more triumphant one 
than that which took place on the annual 
/He of the village. The people from time 
immemorial held high festival "in honor" 
of their patron saint — eating and drinking 
double rations, dancing and making merry 
from early morn, and carrying on the rejoic- 



44 'I'HK CURfe OF ARS. 

ings at night in a ball that lasted till 
daybreak. This last part of the festivities 
was the Cure's special horror; he knew it 
was the ruin of many innocent souls, and he 
resolved to do away with it at all costs. 
The mayor, who was a good Christian, agreed 
with him, and promised to forbid the ball ; 
but several young men of the village went 
to the prefect and obtained a counter-permission 
to have it. This left no appeal, the mayor 
said. But the Cure, who had reserve forces, 
was not to be beaten. The day came, and 
the merry-making was kept up with the usual 
spirit until evening. Then the candles were 
lighted, and the fiddling began, and the 
young men aSvSembled for the ball. But, lo I 
there were no partners to dance with. The 
girls were all in church, saying the Rosary 
with M. le Cure, instead of going to the 
dance where the devil was waiting for them. 
The Cure had the mothers and daughters on 
his side, and the young men took their defeat 
good humoredly. This gave the death-blow 
to the annual ball. 

The same fate befell a number of other 
wicked and dangerous customs. The observ- 
ance of Sunday, for instance, was neglected: 



HK IS SKNT TO ARS. 45 

the shops were kept open and work was 
done just as on week-days. The Cure never 
ceased praying and preaching till he made 
the people see the sinfulness of this disobe- 
dience to God and the Church, and by 
degrees persuaded them to hold the day 
sacred. More then one miracle was granted 
to help them to this good resolution. Once, 
in harvest time, while the people were at 
High Mass, the wind rose and blew with 
violence; heavy clouds gathered, and every- 
thing announced a storm. The Cure ascended 
the pulpit, and forbade his flock to touch 
the corn that was lying on the ground, 
promising them in the name of God that 
they should have plenty of fine weather to 
carry on the harvest if they kept holy the 
Sunday. They did so, and, contrary to the 
prophecies of all the weather-wise elders, the 
storm passed away, the sun shone out, and 
there was no rain for a fortnight. 

By the same gentle but powerful means he 
contrived to do away with the two public 
houses that were the curse of Ars. The 
people, hearkening to his words, gave up 
drink; and those agents of the devil, the 
venders of alcohol, finding their trade falling 



46 THE cure; of ars. 

off", shut up their shops, and carried their 
poison elsewhere. The change worked in Ars 
by their departure was incalculable. The 
people went regularly to church, they fre- 
quented the Sacraments, and the blessing of 
God rested visibly upon the village. Some 
years later an inhabitant of the country 
declared that he was in the habit of walking 
through the fields in harvest time, when they 
were full of laboring men and women, and 
that he never once heard a profane or 
unbecoming expression. He happened to 
remark on this to one of the laborers, and 
observed that it spoke highly for the moral 
character of the population; but the peasant 
answered with straightforward simplicity: ''Ah, 
monsieur, we are no better here than in 
other villages, but we should be ashamed 
to misbehave ourselves so close to a saint!*' 



VI. 



HE IS MIRACUI^OUSIyY HEI.PED. 

The Cure of Ars soon found that his church 
was too small to contain the whole population 
of the village that now crowded to every 
service on Sunday, so he resolved to add a 



HE IS MIRACUI.OUSI.Y HKI.PED. 47 

chapel to it. He built the chapel, and dedi- 
cated it to St. John ; but when this was done 
it had to be paid for, and the Cure had no 
money. Every penny he had collected had 
gone straight from his pocket to the poor, 
and he found himself absolutely without funds 
when the architect sent in his bill. He 
begged for a few days' time, and then, taking 
his beads, he went out for a walk. He was 
very much distressed, for he knew not where 
to turn for the money ; and he was full of 
remorse for having got himself into this 
dilemma. Suddenly, as he stepped from a 
field out on the highroad, a stranger rode up, 
and, stopping his horse, accosted him with a 
gracious salutation, and inquired after his 
health. ''I am well enough, monsieur,'* 
replied the holy man ; ^ ' but I am dreadfully 
worried. " — " Your parishioners are hard to 
manage, I suppose ? " — " No : on the con- 
trary, they are very docile and good. That 
is not what is worrying me ; but I have built 
a chapel and I have no money to pay the 
architect. ' ' The stranger made no reply ; and 
the Cur6, thinking he was annoyed by what 
looked like an indirect appeal for help, bowed 
and was passing on, when the other said : 



48 THK CURfe OF ARS. 

*'M. le Cur6, take this to pay for your 
chapel. I commend myself to your prayers.'* 
He slipped a large sum of money into M. 
Vianney's hand, and rode away without 
waiting to hear his thanks. The Cur6 never 
saw him again, and never heard who he was. 
This was the first of a succession of 
mysterious messengers who were to come 
to his aid in difficulties of the kind. He 
bestowed alms, founded good works, and gave 
away money with the prodigal generosity of 
one who draws upon boundless resources. It 
happened from time to time that the supply 
stopped, and then there followed a period of 
dark anxiety to those who reckoned on the 
Cure to meet imperative demands. But he 
was never disturbed by these delays ; he 
simply turned to his ' ' consuls, " as he called 
the saints, and summoned them to send in 
the necessary funds ; and though he was some- 
times obliged to ' ' din it into their ears, ' ' as 
he said, they never failed to keep his appoint- 
ments. They sent the money in ways that 
would almost suggest the exercise of a sense 
of humor in the saintly consuls ; they stowed 
it away in holes and comers, as if to give 
their holy client the pleasure of a surprise. 



HE IS MIRACULOUSIvY HKLPBD. 49 

Catherine Lassagne says he used to go about 
diligently searching for gold and bank-notes, 
as if he knew they were hid away and had 
only to be hunted for ; he frequently came 
on large sums in the pockets of his coat that 
had been empty for days ; once he was 
attracted by something glittering in the heap 
of dead ashes in the kitchen grate, and on 
poking amongst them he found a quantity of 
gold coins ; he laughed gently at this trick 
of his consuls, just as a child might on 
finding the object of a game of hide-and-seek. 
He was in terrible straits once for a sum 
of three thousand francs that was due on a 
certain day. The children of his orphanage 
began a novena to St. Joseph and St. John 
the Baptist, but they came to the eighth day 
and the consuls had done nothing. The Cure 
said to a friend in the course of the after- 
noon : "I am greatly worried ; I owe three 
thousand francs that must be paid to-morrow. 
One should beware of going in debt." Next 
morning, when coming from his catechism, 
he met this friend, and hurried away from 
him with the remark: ''I must go and count 
my money." He went into the house, walk- 
ing like one who carried a heavy weight. 



50 THE cur:e: of ars. 

Presently he came out of his room, and said 
to his friend, who was waiting below: ''Well, 
we have found lots of money ! The load was 
so heavy that I could hardly walk. It 
weighed down my pockets ; I had to hold 
them up with both hands. I was afraid the 
people would see me.'' His friend asked him 
where he got all this money, and on the 
Cure replying evasively, with a smile, that 
he had ''found it somewhere,'' the other 
said earnestly: " M. le Cure, I wish you 
would teach me how to perform miracles." 
The holy man's countenance suddenly grew 
grave, and after a moment's reflection he 
said : * ' My friend, there is nothing that dis- 
concerts and baffles the devil, and draws 
down grace from God, like fasting and watch- 
ing. When I was able to follow my own 
will on this head I obtained everything I 
wanted." Here the tears streamed down his 
face, and he continued: "Now, I can't go 
without food as I used to do. I grow so 
weak that I can't speak." 

Do what he would to keep secret the won- 
derful things he was permitted to do, they 
leaked out ; the fame of his miracles spread, 
and the ecclesiastical authorities began to 



HK IS MIRACUI.OUSI.Y HKI^PED. 5 1 

think that such marvellous gifts ought not 
to be confined within such a narrow sphere 
as the parish of Ars, — that they needed a 
wider field in order to reap a richer harvest. 
M. Vianney was unexpectedly named to an 
important parish in Beaujolais. The appoint- 
ment was a shock to him, inasmuch as he 
fancied himself too insignificant and worthless 
to be the object of his superior's notice at 
all, — above all, of anything like promotion ; 
but to his parishioners the news came like a 
calamity. The population were in despair ; 
they insisted that something must be done to 
prevent the archiepiscopal order from being 
carried out, and Mademoiselle d'Ars heroically 
declared her readiness to go and * ' strangle ' ■ 
the Vicar-General, if that would help. Mean- 
time M. Vianney, who was equally willing 
to stay or to go, as God should decide, went 
to visit his new post, and as no counter- 
order had come from the Archbishop he made 
ready to leave Ars. His few books and 
clothes were packed up, and one morning his 
shabby little furniture was carried down to 
the boat which was to convey him to his 
destination. But, suddenly and rapidly, the 
water rose and overflowed its banks, so that 



52 THE CURfi OF ARS. 

it became impossible to reach the boat, and 
M. Vianney was forced to return to the 
presbytery. The next day, the flood having 
disappeared, he set out again for the boat ; 
but the same accident repeated itself, and he 
was again driven back. The population, ready 
to see in this remarkable incident a sign that 
he was not to leave Ars, sent a deputation 
to the Archbishop, earnestly entreating him 
to let their pastor remain with them ; and 
the prelate, recognizing the hand of Divine 
Providence in the event, granted their desire. 

VII. 

HIS MISSIONARY I.ABORS — ''l.A PROVIDKNCK." 

From this date his life took root amongst 
his people, and the possibility of going from 
them to any other parish seemed set aside 
definitively ; their joys became his joys, their 
sorrows his sorrows, and their mutual relation- 
ship strengthened into a union to be broken 
only by death. His pity for their material 
suflFerings was that of a true father, but his 
love for their souls amounted to a passion ; 
he wrestled with God for them in tears and 
fastings and watchings. Catherine, his ser\''- 



HIS MISSIONARY I.ABORS. 53 

ant, says that he prayed for their conversion 
sometimes for days and nights together, as if 
he were praying for his own life. The sight 
of their sins was almost more than he could 
bear. He accused himself of being the cause 
of them ; it was his unworthiness that scan- 
dalized his people, and stopped the current 
of divine grace. In order to turn away the 
divine anger that his sins drew upon the 
village, he used to invite constantly some 
priest whom he believed to be very holy to 
come and stay at Ars, and preach to the 
people, and urge them to repentance. While 
these short missions lasted he redoubled his 
prayers, his tears, and his austerities ; and 
wonderful were the fruits often obtained from 
these efforts of his burning zeal. After one 
mission the whole population seemed won 
over to God ; they crowded round the con- 
fessional day and night, and at the closing 
exercises the Cure wept with joy in the 
pulpit, although so exhausted with fatigue 
from fasting and working that he could hardly 
stand. 

But his labors were not confined to Ars. 
Neighboring parishes were constantly calling 
for him to preach and confess ; when an}- 



54 '^^HK CURfe OF ARS. 

priest fell ill the Cure of Ars was sent for, 
as a matter of course ; and the people, who 
venerated him as a saint, were ingenious in 
inventing pretexts for detaining him in their 
midst. Thus for several years he was in the 
habit of ministering regularly in three parishes 
besides his own. He never reckoned with his 
poor feeble body. When souls called to him, 
from no matter what distance, he would roll 
up his surplice, and in the depth of winter 
set off through the snow, arrive soaked and 
faint, confess and preach without thinking of 
rest, pass the night in the confessional, and 
tramp home again the next morning. And 
if, coming along the road in the bitter cold, 
he met a beggar more ragged and poverty- 
stricken than himself, he would immediately 
take oflf some portion of his own clothing — 
his cloak, his shoes, his shabby muflfler, — and 
bestow it on him. 

During a great mission of the Chartreux 
Fathers at Tr^voux, which lasted five weeks, 
the Cure of Ars performed prodigies of work 
that only supernatural help could have enabled 
him to live through. The reputation of holi- 
ness which he enjoyed far beyond Ars drew 
crowds to his confessional at Tr6voux, and 



HIS MISSIONARY I.ABORS. 55 

these penitents were almost always men of 
the educated classes — magistrates, lawyers, 
government functionaries. One day the crowd 
in the chapel where he was hearing confes- 
sions was so dense that the confessional was 
pushed forward, priest and penitents in it. 
He used to sit until he was almost incapable 
of rising from fatigue. A gentleman who was 
giving him hospitality at Tr^voux, fearing 
that he would fall ill from exhaustion, went 
to the church to bring him away ; he 
succeeded with difficulty in getting him out 
of the confessional, and as soon as they were 
in the street the vSaintly Cure fell down, not 
in a faint, but from sheer weakness ; his 
kind-hearted hOvSt had to carry him home and 
administer a cordial to him. 

On the eve of the general Communion this 
same gentleman, M. Morel, went to the 
c?iurch at nine in the evening to bring the 
servant of God home to rest for a few hours 
before he embarked on the tremendous fatigue 
of the next morning ; but he found the chapel 
so blocked that he could not get to the 
confeSvSional. He went away and returned at 
midnight, to find the crowd just as dense. 
He sat down and waited till two in the 



56 THK CURfe OF ARS. 

morning. Seeing there was no chance of the 
Cure being set free, he pushed his way up 
to the confessional, knocked at it, and said 
out loud: ''M. le Cure, I must carry you 
away now whether you will or not." Upon 
which several cried out : ' ' If you take him 
away, we will never come back, and the 
sin will be upon your head." — "What!" 
exclaimed M. Morel, "he was here till mid- 
night yesterday, and back here again at four 
in the morning. And he did not lie down 
between times ; his bed was not touched ; he 
had to say his office, and he has to say it 
now ; and he will be back here again at 
four. Would any of you here do as much, 
tell me ? ' ' This appeal silenced the impatient 
penitents. M. Morel opened the door of the 
confessional, and helped out the Cure, more 
dead than alive. 

The miracles of mercy wrought in countless 
souls during this mission carried the fame of 
M. Vianney's sanctity all over France, and 
the result was that from this time forth he 
never had one hour that he could call his 
own. 

It was, no doubt, part of his gift of mir- 
acles which prevented his parish suflfering in 



HIS MISSIONARY LABORS. 57 

the smallest degree from these external mis- 
sions. Incredible as it may seem, in spite of 
the overwhelming claims which beset the 
Cure from so many directions, he was as 
assiduous and successful in the management 
of Ars as if nothing diverted his attention 
from it. He had found the village in great 
material poverty, quite destitute of charitable 
foundations, and he had set to work at once 
to supply this want. His first care was to 
provide a refuge for little orphan girls. He 
performed miracles of charity in carrying out 
this work. Poor as the poorest orphan that 
he sought to shelter, he contrived to pay a 
considerable sum for a house to receive them. 
The asylum was appropriately called ' ' La 
Providence." It was supported solely by the 
bounty of Providence. One by one the pious 
women of the parish came w4th their offerings, 
both of money and vService, until the institution 
— which began, like all such divine works, in 
the vSmallest and humblest way — was so large 
that the original house could not contain the 
number of orphans who begged for admit- 
tance. *'We must build!" said the Cur6. 
And he constituted hinivSelf architect, carpen- 
ter, and mason, working like a hired journey- 



58 THE cure: of ARS. 

man, and with a skill that amazed all be- 
holders. He made the mortar, he carried the 
stones ; he never spared himself, going from 
this hard manual work to the no less ardu- 
ous w^ork of the confessional. His indomit- 
able courage and charity w^ere speedily and 
abundantly rewarded. In an incredibly short 
time the building rose, necessaries poured in, 
and sixt}' more orphans were sheltered. 

For five and tw^enty years the ser\^ant of 
God supported this asylum without any cer- 
tain funds, just trusting to Providence for 
the money as it w^as w^anted ; and his trust 
was never disappointed. When ordinary help 
failed, God sent extraordinar}^ aid. Once there 
remained absolutely nothing for the large 
household on the morrow^ but a little measure 
of flour that could not have given bread to 
a dozen orphans. The directress, in despair, 
went to the Cvue. He was silent for a mo- 
ment, and then said: "Put the 3'east into 
the flour that remains, and leave it to rise, 
and to-morrow make the bread as usual.'' 
She obeyed the first injunction, and waited 
in patient anxiety to see w^hat w^ould come 
of it. Next morning she began to make the 
bread, and according as she w^orked the dough 



HIS MISSIONARY LABORS. 59 

it rose and swelled, until at last it overflowed 
the great kneading-trough, and produced ten 
huge loaves of five-and-twenty pounds each — 
as much, in fact, as if the handful of flour 
had been a sackful. The servant of God 
attributed the miracle to St. Francis Regis, 
whom he had constituted protector of the 
asylum, and remarked humbly : ' ' God per- 
mitted it too, perhaps, to rebuke my want 
of faith in His providence.'' 

God certainly sent him abundant rebukes 
of a similar kind, for the simple chronicles 
of the Providence contain innumerable records 
of like miracles : as when one day the wine 
ran out from the new barrel, carelessly 
tapped, and flooded the cellar. The dismayed 
servant hastened with the bad news to the 
Cure ; he smiled calmly, and told her that 
God, who sent the wine, could put it back 
into the barrel if it were needed for His 
orphans. On returning to the cellar, she 
found the barrel full and the floor dry. 

Again and again, when the bills came in 
and there was not a cent to pay them, the 
Cur6 would take his Rosary and go for a 
walk, and meet some mysterious benefactor, 
who handed him the precise sum he wanted. 



6o THK CURfe OF ARS. 

When any one was in trouble, whether about 
temporal or spiritual things, he would cheer 
him with a word about the efficacy of trust 
in God. ''It is our confidence that God 
wants, ' ' he kept repeating ; "if we only 
trusted Him we could make Him do any- 
thing for us." And his usual last word was, 
''Take your beads and go for a w^alk." 

The system on which the Providence was 
conducted illustrates admirably the power of 
the strong faith and common sense of the 
holy man. The house was devoid of anything 
like ' ' appearances. ' ' It was a plain building, 
furnished with the barest necessaries, only 
diflfering in its perfect cleanliness from the 
houses of the poor whom it sheltered. The 
food was of the coarsest ; the orphans slept 
on straw, sat on hard deal benches, and ate 
black bread, as they would have done in 
the homes of their parents. The question of 
appearances, of exterior show, so supreme in 
our day with all charitable institutions, was 
utterly ignored by the Cur6 of Ars. The 
orphans had no uniform : they wore what 
clothes they could get, the elders of the 
village being glad to contribute their well- 
worn garments to be cut and contrived into 



HIS MISSIONARY I.ABORS. 6 1 

gowns for them. Everything remained rough 
and shabby in their lives, so that they were 
not unfitted for the hardships they had to 
face on leaving the Providence. The only 
luxuries they enjoyed there without stint 
were kindness and cleanliness. The Cure of 
Ars' principle was that the poor should be 
braced to bear their appointed poverty, and 
taught how to cleanse and sweeten its external 
conditions as much as possible ; but he was 
intolerant of any attempt to cheat it of its 
real character by making it look what it was 
not. 

Those who visited this asylum of his always 
carried away an impression of the deepest 
edification. Everything in it was perfectly 
natural. The children were all poor together, 
and they were being trained to endure their 
poverty, and to help one another in a variety 
of ways ; so that the older and more intelligent 
girls became auxiliaries of the mistresses, 
often very valuable ones, washing and dress- 
ing the little toddlers, and teaching them 
and keeping them in order. The absence of 
rules and regulations was one of the most 
conspicuous features of the house. It may be 
that nothing short of the benign influence ot 



62 THE cure: of ARS. 

a saint could have enabled them to be so 
completely dispensed with ; but certain it is 
that no charitable institution, no house of 
reform, ever brought forth sweeter or more 
lasting fruits in the souls it fashioned than 
did this happy-go-lucky home for the orphans 
of Ars. 

But if the Providence was free of external 
rules, it was surrounded and penetrated by 
the law that reigns within and holds hearts 
under its empire. These poor children, who 
had for the most part grown up like little 
animals, untaught and unkempt, were as soft 
as wax in the hands of their adopted father. 
He inspired them with such a horror of vice 
that they were contrite as mature penitents 
for their sins, and came to love with a kind 
of personal, human love the God who had 
forgiven and rescued them. Few things 
delighted them more than being allowed to 
spend an hour in reparation before the 
Blessed Sacrament. If any scandal occurred 
in the neighborhood, or if they heard of a 
sacrilege committed in any distant place, the 
older girls not unfrequently begged leave to 
pass the night in prayer, relieving one another 
every two hours before the tabernacle. Their 



HIS MISSIONARY I^ABORS. 63 

desire for mortification was so great that the 
mistresses had to control it, lest they should 
injure their health. They sometimes died the 
death of saints. One of them, whose early 
childhood had been miserably abandoned, had 
imbibed, with a salutary horror of sin, an 
overpowering terror of death ; but when she 
fell dangerously ill, and heard that she was 
going to die, her fear was suddenly changed 
to joy. ''I could not have believed it was 
so good to die!" she exclaimed, and began 
to sing a canticle. She died singing. 

These were the kind of pupils the Cure 
of Ars formed. His influence over their souls 
was almost irresistible. When he had an 
hour's leisure during the week he would go 
to the asylum to give them a little discourse, 
and his presence at the door of the work- 
room was welcomed with a shout of delight. 
* ' M. le Cure is going to talk to us about 
the good God ! ' ' and they were immediately 
all eyes and ears not to lose a word of the 
precious ''talk." Before it was over there 
were nearly always tears flowing, and brave 
resolutions were silently taken against self 
and sin. It was here that the Cur6 delivered 
many of those wonderful instructions on the 






64 THE CUFi: OF ARS. 



catechism which have been preserved in frag- 
ments, and which have moved so many hearts 
since they were spoken at the Providence. 

The Cure of Ars was not eloquent; he 
had not even a natural flow of language, 
and he was often ungrammatical ; but the 
power of his words was the more extraordi- 
nary from the absence of natural gifts. When 
he spoke on his favorite themes — the love 
and goodness of God and the horrible nature 
of sin — his language was like a living flame. 
Even in print those ''catechisms'' have a 
glow that is full of the warmth of his ardent 
faith ; but spoken, they were more effective 
than the finest and most polished oratory. 

When he began to dilate on the Holy 
Eucharist his face shone and his voice 
trembled; at times his whole body shook, 
and his intense emotion communicated itself 
to his hearers. One memorable instruction 
still lives in the traditions of Ars, owing 
to the impression it made on his young audi- 
ence. It contained the following passage: 

''My children, there is nothing so grand 
as the Eucharist. Offer up a prayer when 
you have God in your heart : He can refuse 
you nothing when you offer Him His Son 



HIS MISSIONARY I.ABORS. 65 

and the merits of His death and passion. 
My children, you remember the story I told 
you about that holy priest who was praying 
for his friend. God, apparently, had made 
known to him that his friend was in pur- 
gatory, so he thought the best thing he 
could do would be to offer up the Holy 
Sacrifice of the Mass for his soul. At the 
moment of Consecration he took the Sacred 
Host in his fingers, and said, 'Now, Holy 
and Eternal Father, let us make an exchange : 
You hold the soul of my friend in purga- 
tory, and I hold the body of Your Son in 
my hands; well, deliver my friend, and I 
offer You in his place Your Divine Son with 
His merits and death and passion.' And it 
came to pass that at the moment of the 
Elevation he beheld the soul of his friend 
ascending to heaven, shining with glory. 
Well, my children, when we want to obtain 
anything from God let us do the same thing: 
after Holy Communion let us offer Him His 
beloved Son with all the merits of His passion 
and death. He will not be able to refuse us 
anything." 

The children used to say, ''When M. le 
Cure begins to talk about the joy of Holy 



66 THK CURfe OF ARS. 

Communion he can never stop.'' Sometimes 
his ardor overcame him, and he would btirst 
into tears, and clasp his hands, looking up 
as if he saw our Blessed Lord before him. 
No wonder souls were stirred and kindled by 
such love as this. The fruits of these simple 
instructions spread beyond the walls of the 
asylum : people from the village crowded into 
the refectory or the work-room, where, seated 
at the table amidst his orphans, he taught 
them divine truths; and by degrees strangers 
came, and it was held a great privilege to 
get a place amongst the rustic audience. 

VIII. 

HIS FASTS. 

The fame of the servant of God was spread- 
ing far and wide. His austerities were 
increasing with his years, until Claudine 
Renard, a good woman who served him, 
wondered how he lived; he ate nothing, and 
daily grew more ingenious in tormenting his 
emaciated body. Claudine did not live at the 
presbytery, but in a house close by, so that 
M. le Cure had the upper-hand of her in 
the matter of starving and perishing himself. 



HIS FASTS. 67 

When with difficulty she obtained leave to 
cook some vegetables or eggs for his dinner, 
he would tell her to go as soon as the food 
was served, and no sooner was her back 
turned than he opened the door and gave it 
to some poor person. A few boiled potatoes, 
a bit of mouldy black bread and a cup of 
water made up his usual meal. The potatoes 
were boiled once a week, and kept in a pot 
that was often filled with mould, so long 
were they left there. 

He used to put his mattress on the floor, 
and sleep on the hard straw of the ticking 
underneath ; but finding that this manoeuvre 
was discovered he left the bed undistiurbed, 
and went to the loft, where he slept on the 
boards, with a stone for his pillow. His 
principle was to drive his body until it 
could go no further. After a long fast, when 
his limbs were so weakened that they tottered 
and refused to carry him, he would take a 
handful of flour and make a kind of pancake 
appropriately called mate/aim (tame-hunger), 
— a refection worthy of an anchorite, for it 
consists in a paste of flour and water fried 
on a griddle, without any seasoning whatever. 
Catherine Lassagne — who was the servant. 



68 



THE CURE OF ARS. 



ofl&cially, at the presbyten* in his latter years 
— relates how, when thousands were flocking 
from all parts of the world to Ars, the holy 
man. overpowered with work, often exclaimed, 
with a sigh of regret. "How happy I was 
in the old days I When I wanted to dine I 
lost no time about it. Three ynatefaims did 
the business. While I was cooking the sec- 
ond I ate the first, and while I was eating 
the second I cooked the third. I finished 
my meal and drank a little water while I 
raked out the fire.'' 

His rigorous penances knew no bounds 
when he wanted to obtain the conversion of 
a sinner. A priest once consulted him as to the 
amount of sacramental penance that ought to 
be imposed on a grievous sinner with a view 
to adjusting the principle of atonement with 
due regard to hiunan weakness. ''Listen," 
he replied; "here is my receipt: give them an 
easy penance, and do the rest on^^lf." 

He was often heard to say that there was 
no penance the devil hated and feared like 
fasting and watching. The discipline and 
corporal mortification were nothing compared 
to privation of food and sleep. "Many a 
time I experienced the truth of this," he 



HIS FASTS. 69 

said to a friend, ''when I was alone for five 
or six years, and could do as I liked, with- 
out being watched by any one. What graces 
Our lyord used to grant me then ! I got 
anything I wanted from Him." 

He never ate more than two pounds of 
bread during Lent. For a time he tried to 
give up bread altogether. One day Claudine 
Renard drove her cow into the presbytery 
garden, and caught the Cure in the act of 
pulling some grass and eating it. She cried 
out in dismay. *'It is an experiment I have 
been making," he replied, laughing; "but it 
is not a success." Thrown off his guard 
once with a young priest who was consult- 
ing him about fasting, he remarked : ' ' We 
are not made like beasts, after all, and we 
cannot feed like them. I tried to do it by 
eating nothing but grass, but 1 grew too 
weak. It seems that bread is necessary for 
man." His BivShop, in conversing on spir- 
itual things with him, said one day: ''You 
never tried to live on herbs and roots as our 
predecessors, the Fathers of the desert and 
the solitaries of Thebaid, did?" " Monseig- 
neur," replied the Cur6, "I tried it for eight 



yo THE CUKE OF ARS. 

days, but I could not go on with it. You 
see, I am not a saint like them.'' 

When Mademoiselle d' Ars and other inti- 
mates remonstrated with him on his unmer- 
ciful treatment of his body, he would answer, 
laughingly: "Oh, I have a sturdy carcass! 
You have no idea how much it can bear." 
The poor carcass kept sturdy on a reghne of 
chronic starvation ; its utter exhaustion was 
manifested b}^ the tottering gait of the holy 
priest, and the increasing weakness of his 
voice. Toward evening the voice grew so 
faint that it was scarcely audible when he 
said night prayers in the church. Some one 
asked him why it was that his voice, which 
was strong enough comparatively when he 
preached, was so feeble when he said pra3^ers. 
"It is," replied the Cure, "because w^hen 
I preach I have often to do wath deaf people 
or people who drop asleep ; but w^hen I pray I 
have to do with God, and God is not deaf." 

Hospitality, that evangelical element of 
charity, was not wanting in the Cure of Ars. 
He was always ready to set aside his more 
than monastic austerit}^ when a brother priest 
or some relation came to visit him. On these 
rare occasions he would send off to Madem- 



HIS FASTS. 71 

oiselle d' Ars and beg the alms of a dish 
or two for his guest, and he would make 
believe to partake of what was on the table. 
Sometimes there was no time to send up to 
the castle, and then Claudine did the best 
she could in her own kitchen — for there was 
never an^^ fire in the presbytery hearth. A 
venerable priest, who came down on the Cure 
unexpectedly in this way, describes how his 
host entertained him with an omelet and 
cheese and a bottle of wine, encouraging him 
graciously to eat by nibbling a little himself 
at the food. 

When the asylum came to be in full activity, 
M. le Cure bethought him that it would save 
time and trouble if he took his meals there. 
The idea of being fed with the poor on 
charity had a certain fascination for him, and 
the thought of having the Cur6 share their 
food was delightful to the orphans. After a 
while, however, he found the food prepared 
for him was too luxurious ; he complained to 
the mivStresses that they were wanting in charity 
toward his soul by taking such care of his 
body — though, in truth, the food he com- 
plained of as too dainty was such as the 



72 THE CURE OF ARS. 

poorest peasant in the parish would have 
found plain. 

The new arrangement had one great advan- 
tage : it compelled him to be comparatively 
regular in taking some sort of nourishment. 
Sometimes he was so exhausted on leaving 
the confessional as to be obliged to sit down 
on the way to the asylum from sheer in- 
ability to go on walking; and then he would 
cheer up the poor carcass as if it were a 
donkey he was apostrophizing. ' ' Gee-up, old 
Adam ! Come along, Colon ! Up now, be a 
man ! ' ^ Colon was the name of a drunkard 
who, when he fell down from drink, used 
to implore his legs to get up and go on. 

The Ciu-e's love of poverty and mortifica- 
tion controlled his clothes as completely as 
his food. He wore them till they fell to 
pieces on him. He had that instinct of clean- 
liness which seems natural to the majority of 
saints, but his total contempt for his personal 
appearance gave him the air of being dirty. 
He never had but one soutane, which he 
allowed to be w^ashed occasionally and patched 
unlimitedly ; for while it held together he 
never w^ould have a new one. A change of 
soutanes he looked upon as a shocking extrav- 



PERSECUTED BY THE DEVIL. 73 

agance. He wore his hat until it had neither 
shape nor color, and no brush or blacking 
ever touched his shoes from the time he put 
them on till they fell to pieces. When he 
presented himself at the dioceasan meetings 
and other assemblies of his brother clergy, 
his dilapidated appearance provoked amuse- 
ment, to which his parishioners were a little 
sensitive; but when they represented to M- 
Vianney the propriety of having some concern 
for his own dignity, he would laugh merrily 
at the conceit. ''What! my clothes are quite 
good enough for me. Anything is good 
enough for the Cure of Ars, and people 
know^ that. Who cares how I look? I am 
only what I am.'' He was in all things, 
great and small, the disciple of Him who 
despised this world, and taught us to learn 
of Him to be meek and lowly of heart. 

IX. 

HE IS PERSECUTED BY THE DEVIL. 

But the life of a saint is not merely a 
series of acts of virtue : it is above all a 
school of suffering. A saint is called upon 
to suffer, in the natural and .supernatural 



74 'I'HK CURK OF ARS. 

order, more than a host of ordinary Christians 
together. In the case of the Cure of Ars 
these sufferings were of so awful and extra- 
ordinary a character that we shudder even 
to hear about them. He had aspired to 
imitate the anchorites of the desert in their 
fastings and macerations, and in this he 
assuredly succeeded ; he was also destined to 
resemble them in the persecution he under- 
went from the demons ; and we must go 
back to the experiences of St. Anthony and 
St. Hilarion to find a parallel for the rage 
with which the evil spirits tormented and 
terrorized him. His courage and faith in 
sustaining this persecution added another trait 
of resemblance between the Cure of Ars and 
the grand old veterans of Thebaid. 

He had been six years in his quiet little 
parish when this marvellous phase of his 
life began. He himself relates the incident. 
' ' The first time the demon came to torment 
me was at nine in the evening, as I was 
going to bed. Three loud knocks resounded 
at the door of the courtyard, as if some one 
wanted to break it dow^n with an enormous 
hatchet. I opened the window and cried out, 
' Who is there ? ' There was no answer ; so 



PKRSKCUTED BY THE DEVIL. 75 

I went quietly to bed, commending myvSelf 
to God, to the Blessed Virgin, and my 
Guardian Angel. I hardly dropped off 
asleep when there came three more knocks, 
still more violent, but this time at the house 
door, at the bottom of the stairs leading to 
my room. I jumped up, and again called 
out, ' Who is there ? ' No one answered. 

' ' When this noise began I fancied it must 
be robbers who had dcvsigns on M. le Vicomte 
d'Ars' handsome vestments, and I thought it 
right to take precautions ; so I begged two 
courageous men to come and sleep in the 
house, in order to help me in case of need. 
They came several nights running ; they heard 
the same noises, but could discover nothing, 
and were convinced that all this row^ was 
caused by something else than the malice of 
men. I soon found out the truth of this ; 
for one winter's night, after a heavy fall of 
snow, three tremendous knocks resounded in 
the middle of the night. I sprang out of 
bed, seized the banister and ran down stairs, 
making sure this time to catch the male- 
factors and call for help. But to my amaze- 
ment I saw nobody ; I heard nothing ; and, 
moreover, I discovered no trace o\ :iny foot- 



76 THE cure: of ars. 

steps on the snow. ... I had no longer any 
doubt after this that it was the devil 
who wanted to frighten me. I abandoned 
myself to the will of God, praying Him to 
be my defender and my guardian, and to be 
near me wdth His angels when the enemy 
came to torment me." 

If the object of the evil spirits was to 
frighten the holy man, they succeeded. He 
was so terrified that his life became a misery 
to him. He used to tremble, so that the 
bed shook under him, while they kept up 
their mysterious noises outside and inside 
the house. He faded away under this terror 
till he was like a withered branch, and his 
flock became seriously alarmed. Some cour- 
ageous persons volunteered to come and mount 
guard at the presbytery, and sleep in the 
room next to him ; while several young men 
took their fire-arms, and went secretly up 
to the steeple in order to command a better 
view of the neighborhood, and thus defeat 
any attempt to attack the house. But they 
saw nothing, though their ears were deafened 
with noises. Some of them were stricken 
with mortal fear. One stout fellow named 
Andre Verchere, the village cartwright, when 



PERSECUTED BY THE DEVIL. 77 

his turn came, stationed himself with his 
gun in the room next the Cure's. On the 
stroke of midnight a frightful explosion was 
heard in the room w^here he was watching : it 
was as if the furniture were being smashed 
to pieces by violent hammer strokes. The 
poor cartwright began to cr}- out in terror 
for the Cure, who hurried in ; but they could 
discover nothing. 

M. Vianney, being now convinced beyond 
any doubt that this nocturnal disturbance 
was the work of the demons, sent awa}- the 
watchers ; he assured them the}^ could not 
help him, and were therefore onl}'- losing their 
night's rest to no purpOvSe. He threw himself 
into the arms of Divine Providence, and b>' 
degrees grew accustomed to the trial, inas- 
much as it ceased to terrify him. But 
according as he grew in faith and fortitude 
the demon increased the violence of his per- 
secution. His habit was, soon after midnight, 
to knock three times at the presbytery door 
by way of announcing himself and waking 
up his victim. He then made a terrific row 
on the staircase l)efore coming into tlic room, 
where he would shake the bed-curtains till 
the wonder was they did not fall to pieces ; 



78 THE CURfe OF AES. 

he would pull about the chairs, flinging them 
against one another, upsetting everything, — 
all the while heaping abusive names on the 
servant of God, threatening him with hell 
and everlasting torments. Sometimes he took 
to hammering big nails into the floor ; then 
his fancy was to saw wood, to tap on the 
bottom of the tin pail in which the holy 
man washed ; but always making, in one way 
or another, a racket that might be truly 
called infernal. 

One night, after rattling a torrent of hail- 
stones on the floor, the devil simulated a 
flock of sheep grazing in the room above ; 
after a time the noise of the four-footed 
creatures moving over the Cure's head, and 
munching the grass, became intolerable, and 
destroyed all chance of sleep. At last the 
holy man cried out : ''My God, I willingly make 
Thee the sacrifice of a few hours' sleep to 
obtain the conversion of sinners.'' Instantly 
the noise ceased, the sheep departed as by 
enchantment, and the tired victim got a little 
rest. 

We can picture to ourselves the excitement 
all these supernatural manifestations caused 
in the village. The Cure was supported by 



PKRSKCUTKD BY THE DKVIL. 79 

the sympathy of his people, who believed 
and reverenced him. They had heard enough 
with their own ears to put the facts beyond 
the possibility of doubt, but even if they 
had not had the evidence of their senses the 
word of the Cur6 was enough. They looked 
upon him not only as a saint, but also as 
the wisest and most sensible of men. 

It may seem strange, although it is 
coUvSistent with God's usual training of His 
saints, that those who doubted the Cure's 
statements, who ridiculed the testimony of the 
honest village - folk, and treated the whole 
thing as an invention or a delusion, were 
the clergy. They set it down to mental 
haUucinations caused by M. Vianney's unnat- 
ural manner of life. " No wonder he hears 
sounds and sees visions : he is delirious from 
hunger," they said. " I^et him eat and sleep 
like other ])eo])le, and the devils will leave 
him alone. His nerves and his imagination 
are overwrouglil l)y physical exhaustion and 
weakness." 

The man of () xl bore with this contradic- 
tion unmunnuringly, trusting to God to make 
known the tnitli in His own time, if it were 
necessary. God saw, apparently, that it was 



8o THE CURE OF ARS. 

necessary, and He had in reserve a signal , 
triumph for His servant. A venerable parish 
priest named Abbe Granger, who had made 
acqaintance with M. Vianney on his arrival 
at Ars, and conceived a profound esteem for 
him, invited him to preach the exercises of 
the Jubilee in his parish of St. Trivier. The 
Cure accepted the invitation, and for three 
weeks worked at the conversion of souls with 
apostolic zeal and marvellous success. There 
were a number of other priests staying at 
the presbytery at the same time ; they had 
heard of the demoniacal- annoyances to which 
the Cure of Ars was subjected, but they 
treated the story with contempt ; they were 
unanimous in attributing it to the diseased 
state of his nerves and general health, brought 
on by fasting,' and they more than once 
alluded jestingly to the affair. One evening, 
however, they grew more earnest in discuss- 
ing it, and some were so far carried away 
by their indignant disbelief in the story as to 
be rude to M. Vianney ; they called him a 
visionary and a maniac, and told him that he 
had onl}^ to eat properly if he wanted to be rid 
of his devils. The gentle sufferer, thankful to 
be humiliated, took it all without a word of 



PERSKCUTED BY THE DEVII.. 8 1 

self-defence, and after a while slipped away 
to his room. 

In due time the household retired to rest, 
but at midnight everybody was roused by a 
most terrific noise : the windows and doors 
clattered, the walls swayed to and fro, and 
the house rocked as if it were going to fall. 
In a moment all the priests were up, and 
by a common impulse rushed to the Cure of 
Ars' room. He was awake, lying quietly in 
his bed. ' ' Get up ! " they cried ; ' ' get up ! 
The house is falling ! "—'^ Oh, I know what 
it is!" the Cur6 replied, smiling. ''You 
can go back to bed ; there is nothing 
to fear; the house will not fall.'' The noises 
and the rocking instantly ceased, and all 
grew perfectly quiet. About an hour later a 
loud ring at the front door pealed through 
the silence. Abbe Vianney hurried down to 
answer it, and found a poor man who had 
walked several leagues to confess to him. 
The servant of God threw on his clothes 
and went to the church, where he spent the 
remainder of the night hearing confessions 
until it was time to say Mass. 

The coincidence of the arrival of the pen- 
itent with the uproar of the demons was 



82 THE CURE OF ARS. 

characteristic of their behavior. Whenever 
divine grace was going to put M. Vianney 
in the way of converting some great sinner 
they redoubled the violence of their attacks. 
He grew so familiar with this trick that 
when the nocturnal storm was increased to 
unusual fury, and the night passed without 
his getting one moment's respite, he always 
expected to find the explanation of it in the 
morning in the shape of a penitent at the 
door — some hardened sinner who had come a 
long way to confess. And he was seldom 
disappointed. 

These supernatural manifestations were now 
so well known in the village that people, 
young and old, spoke of them as of other 
incidents in their dail}^ lives ; and the Cur6 
of Ars, in his simplicity, did not attempt to 
disguise them. He sometimes turned the 
trial to account in his own way. One day, 
giving an instruction on the Sign of the 
Cross, he spoke of how powerful it was 
against evil spirits. "The devil is cunning," 
he said, ' ' but he is not strong ; one Sign 
of the Cross puts him to flight. Only three 
days ago he was making an infernal racket 
over my head ; you would have thought all 



PERSECUTED BY THE DEVIL. 83 

the coaches in Lyons were rolling over the 
floor. ... A troop of devils were shaking my 
door, chattering like an arni}^ of Austrians. 
I did not understand one word of their 
gibberish. I made the Sign of the Cross, and 
they all fled.'' Another da}^ he said, in order 
to encourage a vsoul under temptation : ' ' That 
is nothing ; the devil hoisted me up in the 
air the other night. I felt the bed going 
away from me ; but I made the Sign of the 
Cross, and the grapphi left me." Grappin 
was his nickname for the Evil One ; he never 
called him anything else. 

The hol}^ man went to preach a mission 
in a neighboring town, and the gi'^appin, 
foreseeing that he was going to reap a rich 
harvest of souls, opened a formidable battery 
on him before he set out, and kept it up 
all the time of his stay in the town. He 
set out on foot at daybreak, and as he 
walked along, saying his Rosary, the atmos- 
phere grew dark, and full of sinister flashes 
and flames of fire ; the bushes on either side 
of the road were on fire, and horrible noises 
resounded in the air. This was only the 
prelude to the persecution that he was to 
undergo during the mission. All night long 



84 THE CURfe OF ARS. 

the devil dragged his bed round the room ; 
next morning on entering the church at day- 
break, the Cur6 of Ars found a crowd of 
penitents waiting for him ; he had no sooner 
sat down in the confessional than he felt 
himself seized and shaken and buffeted, as if 
he were tossed about by furious waves. Far from 
being disheartened by this ruflRanly violence, 
the serv^ant of God inwardly rejoiced at it ; 
for it was a sign to him that many sinners 
were about to be converted. He was, in 
truth, consoled by witnessing wonderful tri- 
tunphs of divine grace in a multitude of souls. 
The friend and biographer of M. Vianney, 
the Abbe Monnin, while staying at the 
presbytery during a mission which inaugu- 
rated the Forty Hours' Adoration at Ars, 
was, early one morning, on leaving his room, 
met by a smell of burning that almost suflFo- 
cated him. He hurried out, crossed the 
square to the church, said Mass, heard con- 
fessions until seven o'clock, and then went 
back to the presbytery, where he found a 
crowd gathered, and great confusion prevail- 
ing. He fancied some accident had happened, 
but on approaching the crowd he saw they 
were laughing and joking. "What is the 



PERSECUTED BY THE DEVIL. 85 

matter?" he inquired. — ''What! don't you 
know that the devils set fire to M. le Cure's 
bed last night ? Look and see ! " — "I 
looked," continues the biographer, "and 
through the door I saw the men carr^dng 
out the charred remains of furniture. I went 
in and hurried up to the Cure's room, where 
everything .showed traces of a recent fire. 
The bed, the curtains, a few pictures on the 
walls, and some poor paintings on glass that 
the Cure was very fond of, and had refused 
to sell because he meant to leave them as a 
legacy to the missionaries, — all were consumed. 
The fire only stopped before the shrine of 
St. Philomena. . . . And it is a most remark- 
able, in a vSense a miraculous fact, that the 
fire did not communicate itself from the thick 
serge curtain to the flooring, which was so 
old and smoked tliat it ought to have blazed 
up like straw." 

The Cure himself passed through the men 
who were carrying away the burnt rubbish, 
but he took no more notice of the affair than 
if they had been digging on the road. Abb6 
Monnin went into the sacristy after him, and 
found him signing pictures for his orx:)lians. 
Suddenly the Cure, holding the pen suspended, 



86 THE CURE OF ARS. 

looked up at him, and, fixing one of his 
deep, sweet glances on him, said: ''I had 
been asking this grace for a long time of 
Our Lord, and He has at last heard me. I 
think I am now the poorest man in the 
parish ; for every other man has a bed, and 
I, thank God, have no longer one." Then 
he went on cheerfully signing the pictures 
that were being handed in to him. 

Later in the day Abbe Monnin spoke to 
him about the fire, and asked him if he really 
thought it was the work of the demon. He 
replied emphatically, but quite coolly: "Oh, 
my friend, the thing is ver^' plain ! As he 
could not burn the man, he gave himself the 
pleasure of burning his bed. He is in a rage. 
That is a good sign : we are going to get 
money and sinners." It was on this occasion 
that He remarked : ' ' Nothing makes the devil 
so angr^^ as when he sees this same money 
that he uses for corrupting and losing souls 
turned by us into the means of saving them." 
It happened as he foretold. A great concourse 
of penitents came to Ars from all parts of 
the country during the next few days, and 
alms poured in abundantly for the mission 
work. The Cure was heard to say on this 



PKBSKCUTKD BY THE DKVil.. 87 

occasion also that few things were more intolerable 
to the demons than the Forty Hours' Adora- 
tion, becaUvSe of the torrents of grace that 
flowed out on sinners from the devotion. 

It was often asked of those who were 
witnesses of the persecution which the vServant 
of God suffered from the evil spirits, whether 
Satan ever appeared to him in a visible form. 
He himself related that he one morning saw 
a monstrous black dog, with flaming eyes 
and hair standing up like bristles, tearing the 
earth off the grave of a man who had died 
without confession. He said that this vSight 
frightened him terribly. 

He confessed to another priest that evil 
spirits used to fill his room in the form of 
bats, and in such quantities that the walls 
were black with them. He had a horror of 
these creatures, but he was not afraid of 
them. What was more repugnant to him 
than bats were rats ; the evil spirits some- 
times took the form of thCvSe vermin, and 
used to run over his face when he was in 
bed, hisvsing hideously. When those who 
heard the noivSes with which the demons 
made night terrible in the presbytery asked 
the servant of God if he was not in mortal 



88 THE cure: of ARS. 

fear of these awful tormentors, who howled 
like wolves at his door, or shrieked and 
barked like night-birds and dogs, he would 
shake his head, and answer with a smile : 
' ' The}^ cannot do us any real harm ; we 
can laugh at them. While God keeps us 
we are in no danger : nothing can hurt us. 
He is more powerful than the grappiny 

And yet he was naturally timid, and from 
the extreme sensitiveness of his nerves, in- 
creased by his austerities, he was more liable 
than others to become the pre}^ of nervous 
terrors. But his soul dwelt in a region above 
the reach of natural fears ; if it had not 
been so, these extraordinary trials must have 
unhinged his mind. God had great designs 
on the humble priest, and in order to perfect 
his holiness He permitted him to be tempted 
beyond what ordinarily holy souls could have 
borne. These trials lasted over thirty years. 
It was, in fact, only in the last year of his 
life that the Cure of Ars was delivered from 
them, and then only partially. 

Yet all through these years he w^as the 
guide and comforter of others through every 
form of trial that souls can experience, and 
the chief feature of his direction was a power 



PBRSECUTKD BY THE DEVII.. 89 

of consolation that seemed to take the sufferers 
into an atmosphere beyond this world. The 
anguish of despair, which for such a length- 
ened period he suffered without intermission, 
never betrayed itself in his countenance or 
manner toward those around him. While the 
demons made him see hell open under his 
feet, and kept hissing into his ear, ''Your 
place is ready there ! we are waiting to 
carry you off ! " the servant of God was 
able to pour out floods of consolation on 
souls struggling under temptation, broken 
with sorrow, or exasperated by the battle of 
life ; they invariably came away consoled and 
fortified, and saying within themselves, ''How 
happy must be this man of God, who breathes 
the very peace of heaven into our souls ! ' ' 
Yes, it was truly the peace of heaven, — the 
peace that passeth understanding, — the peace 
that comes to those who have w\itched with 
Jesus through His agony in Gethsemane, and 
drunk of His chalice, and climbed up to 
Calvary in His footsteps. 



90 THE CURE OF ARS. 

X. 

HE IS PERSECUTED BY EVIL TONGUES. 

But the bitterest of all trials was still in 
store for the Cure of Ars. If we had not 
the history of all the saints to confirm the 
fact, it would be almost impossible to believe 
that a priest like Abbe Vianney — so austere, 
so humble, so surrounded by the veneration 
of all who were witnesses of his extraordinary^ 
holiness — could fall a victim to hatred and 
calumny. But he was to pass through this 
supreme ordeal which God reserves for the 
final purification of His serv^ants. There is 
always a certain class of human beings who, 
being possessed by that distinctively demoni- 
acal characteristic, the deadly sin of envy, 
are maddened by the sight of whatever things 
are high and pure and lovely and of good 
report in others, and who seek to pull down 
and blacken all who are above them. Un- 
fortunately, this vile and devilish sin is not 
confined to evil - doers — to men and women 
who lead bad lives, and whose wickedness 
might naturall}^ feel rebuked and shamed by 



perse:cutkd by kviIv tongues. 91 

the white purity of God's servants ; it finds 
a place sometimes in souls that are honestly 
virtuous and full of zeal. These were the 
persons whom God permitted to be the instru- 
ments of the Cur6 of Ars' trial in order for 
his greater perfection. 

A number of worthy priests were blinded 
by the devil to such a degree that they 
imagined M. Vianney was an impostor. When 
they saw their flocks filled with admiration 
of his holiness, and their penitents going to 
seek his direction, they were fired with jeal- 
ousy, and became a prey to its wicked delu- 
sions. When it was reported by trustworthy 
witnesses that the demons made terrific noises 
round the holy man's confessional the moment 
notable sinners entered it, and that while 
absohition was being pronounced upon them 
the noise of heavy chains falling, as if sud- 
denly struck off", became audible to those 
around, — when marv^els of this kind were 
repeated to priests who had failed to draw 
the same great sinners to the Sacrament of 
Penance, they went about proclaiming M. 
Vianney a fanatic and a dupe of the evil 
spirits. 

Another class of persons who swelled false 



92 



THK CURE OF ARS. 



testimonies were well-meaning but flighty and 
excitable women of the world. These ladies 
besieged the Cur6 of Ars for advice in their, 
often imaginary, trials and temptations. The 
servant of God had, perhaps, better have 
dismissed them with the short attention they 
deserved, but in his charity he tried to in- 
spire them with the love of the cross, and 
spoke to them in a language they did not 
understand ; they repeated his words, generally 
distorting and exaggerating them, and gave 
scandal b}^ the contrast which this profession 
of mysticism made with the vanity aud sinful 
frivolity of their lives. 

Good priests wrote to M. Vianne}^ in inso- 
lent and abusive terms. ''A man who knows 
so little theology as you ought never to sit 
in the confessional ! ' ' was the opening sen- 
tence of one of these letters. And the Cure 
of Ars, who was forced to leave unanswered 
hundreds of letters full of reverent entreaty, 
found time to answer this rude missive, and 
to thank the writer. "Oh, how I ought to 
love you, my dear and much respected bro- 
ther ! " he exclaims ; ' ' you are one of the 
few who know^ me thoroughly. Help me, 
therefore, to obtain the favor I have been so 



PKRSKCUTKD BY KVII. TONGUE^. 93 

long seeking — namely, to be replaced in my 
position here, which I am indeed unworthy 
to occupy on account of my ignorance ; and 
that I may be free to withdraw into a comer 
and weep over my sins." 

His detractors were not satisfied with in- 
sulting and accusing him directly : they 
worked against him with his bishop, and left 
nothing undone to induce the latter to dismiss 
him from Ars. The onset was so fierce at 
one time that the Cur6 afterwards said : ' * I 
expected from one day to another to be put 
to the door with blows and kicks, and prob- 
ably to end m}?- days in prison." Happily 
the bishop was a wise, enlightened and holy 
man, and soon saw through the tempest 
raised against his saintly priest. He met his 
clerg}^ one da}^ at a large assembly, and 
said: "Gentlemen, I wish you were all 
aflBlicted with the same madness to which you 
say the Cure of Ars is a victim; it would 
in no way detract from your wisdom. He 
is a saint, — yes, gentlemen, a saint, whom we 
should all of us admire and take for our 
model." 

But this protection and testimony, if they 
curbed the folly and inconsiderate malice of 



94 I'HK CURE OF ARS. 

his brethren, did not arrest the eflfect of their 
example on the world, or silence evil tongues ; 
these kept on stinging and stabbing him. 
He felt it all keenly, for his nature was 
sensitive and his heart tender as a woman's; 
but he never uttered a word of complaint, 
and never would suffer a word against the 
people who were slandering him. Once a 
friend exclaimed to him, indignantly: "Such 
calumnies could only be invented by the 
most perv^erted of men!" But the holy man 
answered, gently : ' ' Oh , no , they are not 
perv^erted ; they are not wicked at all ; it is 
simply that they found me out and know 
me better than others ! ' ' But when his 
friend retorted, ''M. le Cure, how could they 
reproach you with having led a bad life?'* 
the servant of God replied with a sigh: 
*'Alas! my life has always been bad. I led 
in those da^'S the kind of life I am lead- 
ing now. I was always good for nothing." 
And so it was all through the trial : to 
unreasonable hate and devilish rancor he 
opposed the meekness and charity of an 
angel. 

In after years a brother priest, who had 
been witness of the persecution he had under- 




PKRSKCUTKD BY BVII. TONGUKS. 95 

gone, asked M. Vianney if it had not troubled 
the peace of his soul. ''What!*' cried the 
servant of God, while a heavenly smile shone 
upon his face, ''the cross trouble the peace 
of my soul ! Why, it is the cross that gives 
peace to the world ! It is the cross that 
must bring it into our hearts. All our misery 
comes from our not loving it. It is the fear 
of the cross that makes the cross. A cross 
borne with simplicity, without the revolt of 
self-love which exaggerates every pang, is no 
longer a cross. We pity ourselves for suffer- 
ing ! We ought rather to pity ourselves for 
not suffering, since it is suffering that makes 
us like unto Our lyord. I don't understand 
how a Christian does not love the cross, or 
how he flies from it. To fly from it is to 
fly from Him who was fastened to it and 
died upon it for love of us.'' 

The Cure of Ars was spared, it is true, 
in this crisis that trial which adds such 
unutterable anguish to every other one : he 
was not deprived of the sense of divine con- 
solation ; he was never compelled to cry out 
upon the cross, ' ' My God ! my God ! why 
hast Thou forsaken me?'' Another person, 
in alluding to this time of trial, asked him 



96 THE cure; of ars. 

if he remembered having ever been so unhappy 
under any other affliction. He replied: "I 
was not unhappy under it at all. I was 
never so happy in my life. God used to 
grant me everything I asked of Him then.'' 
He was never heard to say an^^thing further 
on the subject, but it is a fact that during 
the eight years that slander and hate 
were let loose upon him the conversions 
and extraordinary spiritual graces obtained at 
Ars increased beyond all calculation. His 
great gift of miracles dates from this period, 
as if God took pleasure in glorifying His 
servant in proportion as the world and the 
demons attacked and reviled him. 

lyittle by little God's testimony prevailed. 
Numbers who came to Ars out of mere curi- 
osity, or full of prejudice and malice against 
M. Vianney, were converted the moment they 
beheld him. The angelic sweetness of his 
countenance and childlike gentleness of his 
manner, the melody of his feeble voice, 
wrought upon them like a liol}^ spell — disarmed 
every prejudice, refuted false witnesses, and 
won every heart. Priests, especiall}^, fell con- 
quests to the holy magnetism of his mild 
blue eyes ; and many a one who had trav- 



HIS PHYSICAL SUFFERINGS. 97 

elled to Ars for the purpose of upbraiding 
him fell down at his feet with the rude word 
unspoken and asked for his blessing. It was 
a terrible ordeal, through which his heroic 
love of the cross bore him safely, and out 
of which he came strengthened in virtue 
and nearer to his Lord than ever. 



XI. 



HIS PHYSICAI, SUFFERINGS. 

The physical life of the Cure of Ars was 
to many a greater miracle than any he ever 
performed ; and assuredly nothing short of a 
supernatural power could have sustained his 
frail bod}^ and infirm health under the weight 
of work and fatigue that he endured. The 
doctor who attended him in his many 
illnesses used to say, "I am in no fear 
about his health ; it depends on One above 
me. That One can do what I can't do. At 
the moment that he seems about to escape 
from us he rallies, and, as if by enchant- 
ment, his strength returns.^' In the autumn 
of 1842 the holy man was attacked with 



98 THK cure: of ARS. 

inflammation of the lungs ; those near him 
were seriously alarmed, when their fears were 
almost instantaneously dispelled by one of 
those sudden rallies. At night he seemed 
entering on his agony, and in the morning 
he was as well as ever, up and doing as if 
nothing had happened. 

Early in the spring of the following year 
he had an illness which lasted longer. 
The crowd of pilgrims was greater than 
usual, and he was breaking down under the 
load of work to be done ; the multitude of 
penitents that surrounded his confessional all 
through the day and night did not leave 
him a moment for rest. One evening he 
ascended the pulpit and began his usual 
exhortation to the people, when his strength 
failed him; he had to stop, and, after a 
second effort, was obliged to give it up. 
Then he tried to say evening prayers, but 
even this he was not equal to ; his voice 
faltered and he broke down completely. He 
was assisted from the pulpit and allowed to 
go home. The moment he lay down in bed 
the gravest symptoms appeared, and soon 
there was every reason to believe that the 
message had come — that the servant of God 



HIS PHYSICAI. SUFFERINGS. 99 

was going home. The doctor said there was 
nothing to be done. ' ' Only God can save 
him!'' was his despairing exclamation. 

The people were inconsolable. The little 
church where his presence had for so many- 
years drawn saints and sinners from every 
part of the world, presented one of those 
touching spectacles common in the ages of 
faith, but very rare in our day. The pastor's 
flock filled it late and early. Tapers were 
kept burning at the altars of Our I^ady and 
St. John, and above all of St. Philomena, the 
dear patroness of the dying saint, — she who 
had worked so many miracles at his desire. 
The crowd round the presbytery was so 
persistent and so eager that it became 
necessary to place a guard at the gate to 
prevent the people from invading the house. 
They kept calling out to their Cure to let 
them look upon him once more, to give 
them one more blessing, — and were only 
calmed when one near him bade them kneel 
down and receive the benediction he was 
about to invoke upon them from his bed of 
pain. 

Parish priests came from distant towns ; 
religious of many communities, rich men and 



lOO THE CURE OF ARS. 

beggars, and sinners and holy men, — all 
came to Ars for news of "the dying saint,*' 
— this same saint whom a little time before 
many of them were bespattering with the 
vilest calumnies. The silence of grief and 
consternation hung over the village. 

Three physicians of repute were called in 
to consult with the doctor in attendance. 
They could give no reasonable hope that the 
exhausted system could hold out against the 
complication of maladies, chronic and acute, 
from which the patient was suffering ; it was 
therefore decided that he must receive Ex- 
treme Unction. As if to give greater solemnity 
to the sacred rite, seven ecclesiastics, who 
had come to get tidings of their brother 
priest, were present, and counted it a high 
privilege to assist at the death of a saint, 
as they considered it. In order to spare the 
people the poignant emotion of knowing 
that their beloved pastor was being adminis- 
tered, those around him agreed that the bell 
had better not be tolled. But the Cure over- 
heard their whispered conversation, and, find- 
ing strength to make his voice heard, said : 
*'Go and ring the bell. Must not the parish- 
ioners pray for their pastor? '^ The passing- 



HIS PHYSICAI, SUFFKRINGS. lOI 

bell had no sooner begun its melancholy 
message than the entire village hurried to 
the presbytery and the church; all who could 
follow the Blessed Sacrament from the altar 
to the house did so ; the staircase was crowded, 
and the courtyard and the place without: and 
all were in tears. 

The last Sacraments were administered to the 
servant of God, who received them with his usual 
simplicity and fervor. When he had made his 
thanksgiving he whispered a request to one 
of his brethren to say Mass for him next 
morning at the altar of St. Philomena. When 
this became known there was a general re- 
action toward hope. His extraordinary faith 
in the power of the Saint and the innumerable 
miraculous favors he had obtained through her 
intercession were so well known to all the 
people that they came in crowds to assist at 
the Holy Sacrifice, convinced that she 
would obtain the life of their pastor. The 
friend who watched night and day by his 
bedside gives the following account of what 
passed meantime in the dying man's room: 

''Before the Holy Sacrifice began M. le Cure 
appeared to me like a man who was 
frightened. I noticed something altogether ex- 



I02 ^ THE CURE OF ARS. 

traordinary about him — a great anxiety, an 
unusual disturbance. I observed his every 
movement with renewed attention. I thought 
the fatal moment had come, and that he 
was going to breathe his last sigh. But as 
soon as the priest ascended the altar he grew 
suddenly calmer. He now looked like a man 
w^ho beheld something pleasant and comforting. 
Mass was hardly over when he cried out : 
*M3^ friend, a wonderful change has taken 
place in me. / am cured /^ Isiy joy was great 
at these words. I was convinced that the 
Cure had had a vision; I had heard him 
murmur several times the name of his sweet 
patroness, which led me to believe that 
St. Philomena had appeared to him. But I 
did not dare put a question to him.'* 

Whatever the secret bet^'een him and St. 
Philomena may have been, the Ctire of Ars 
guarded it faithfull3^ What he could not con- 
ceal was the fact that from that moment all 
dangerous S3'mptoms left him, and he was 
suddenly convalescent. His docility to the 
four doctors who were witnesses of his cure 
was the admiration of ever^^body. He knew 
how vain their human efforts had been, and 
yet he continued to obey their injunctions as 



HIS PHYSICAIv SUFFERINGS. IO3 

if they had been his ecclesiastical superiors. 
Sometimes, indeed, he tried to evade certain 
prescriptions that were antagonistic to his 
austere habit, as when he desired Catherine to 
throw away the chicken-broth that she was 
ordered to make for him; but when his con- 
fessor scolded him for this infraction of 
discipline, and bade him take the broth, he 
obeyed like a chidden child. His playful 
gayety was a source of wonder and delight 
to everybody. One day, seeing the faculty 
standing round his bed in the persons of his 
four physicians, he laughed in his childlike 
way, and, looking from one to the other, 
said : * ' I am fighting , a hard battle ! " — 
*' Against whom, M. le Cure?" — "Against 
four doctors. If a fifth comes in I am a 
dead man ! ' ' 

This illness was a time of great spiritual 
joy to the servant of God. He used to 
speak with a kind of innocent glee of the 
piety and charity of his flock throughout. 
* * Oh ! how it used to stir my heart, ' ' he 
said, ** when I saw the gray heads of the 
parish come in and bow down by my bed- 
side to get my blessing ! * ' 

He accepted the respite from death witli a 



104 ^HK cur:e: of ars. 

deep sense of relief and thanksgiving. He 
was resigned to die, but his holy fear of 
God, his sense of his own sinfulness and the 
awful purity of God, made him tremble at 
the prospect of the judgment. He was 
heard frequently murmuring under his breath, 
* ' No, no, my God ! Not yet ! I am not 
ready to appear before Thy awful tribunal." 
He was impatient to regain strength to walk 
to the church and offer up his thanks to the 
Divine Mercy for his recovery. As soon as 
it was possible he had himself assisted, 
almost carried, to the altar of St. Philomena, 
and there, with tears of gratitude streaming 
from his eyes, he thanked his dear protect- 
ress for having obtained for him yet a little 
while to do penance for his sins and serve 
his lyord. But the longing of his soul from 
this forth was to serve Him in solitude. 
The burden of the apostolate seemed to 
weigh him down to the earth. He was con- 
vinced that his unworthiness made a barrier 
against the graces that God wanted to pour 
out on the souls he had charge of, and 
that he was endangering his own salvation 
by hindering their sanctification. 

Those who were present ^the first time the 




HIS FI.IGHT TO DARDII.I.Y. 105 

Cur6 of Ars sat in the sanctuary after his 
illness, and addressed his flock, declared the 
effect was like nothing else they had ever 
experienced. His voice was so weak as to 
be hardly audible ; his poor, emaciated frame 
could hardly sustain itself; but his limpid blue 
eyes had a flame in them that set all hearts 
aglow, and his voice pierced them like a 
sword. He resembled a soul who had been 
to the world beyond, and come back to 
earth, panting, homesick, and yearning to be 
set free, — just holding on to life through 
humility and obedience. And, in truth, he 
longed more and more to escape from the 
crowd, and indulge in solitary communion 
with God. 

xn. 

HIS FLIGHT TO DARDII.I.Y. 

It was at this period that he was heard 
often to regret the little valley of Chante- 
Merle, where as a child he UvSed to take his 
father's three sheep to graze, and where he had 
prayed so happily, undisturbed before his 
Madonna. '' If I could go and end my poor 
life there, how good it would be!" he 



I06 THE CURE OF ARS. 

sometimes murmured. Those who were close 
to him saw that this thought was absorbing 
him more and more ; and when he began to 
threaten, half playfully, that he would "run 
away one of these days," they felt there 
was more earnest than jest in the words. It 
was, therefore, more a grief than a surprise 
to them when it became known one morn- 
ing that M. Vianney had stolen away in 
the night-time, — yes, stolen himself away like 
a thief. Xear Uvo o'clock a light was seen 
in his bedroom window ; he crept cautiously 
down stairs and went out by the back-door. 
A number of people who were standing in 
the court outside the church, seeing this, 
hurried after him, cr^'ing out to him to bless 
some rosaries and medals ; but he walked on 
quickly, paying no heed to them. They 
took for granted that he was going on a 
sick call, and did not follow him, but went 
back to the church. It was only when the 
hours went by and it was near five o'clock, 
and he did not appear in the confessional, 
that the alarm spread ; it soon became 
general, and the \-illage woke to the fact 
that their pastor had fied. 

He had quietly gone off to the old home 



HIS FI.IGHT TO DARDII,I,Y, IO7 

at Dardilly, where his brother still lived. 
The joy of the family on beholding him was 
great. He shared it in his gentle way, and 
took a childlike pleasure in going to see 
the old places that were full of the sweet 
memories of his youth. He went at once to 
pay his respects to the elders whom he had 
known, and to such of his contemporaries as 
were still in the village. This done, he re- 
sumed his life of prayer and contemplation 
and austerity, as if it had not been inter- 
rupted, and never left his little room except 
to go to the church. 

The most touching letters reached him 
from Ars, urging him to return. One of 
these, from his parishioner M. des Garets, 
made an impression on him. His old friend 
implored him not to take any final resolu- 
tions without seeing him. " Rest as long as 
you feel the need of it," said M. des 
Garets ; ' ^ stay quietly with your brother. 
You are in need of rest ; but don't forget 
your poor parish of Ars." He went on to 
remind the fugitive of the sorrow his flight 
would cause to many ; the loss he would be 
to the Providence, where the deserted 
orphans were weeping over their lost father ; 



io8 



THK CURK OF ARS. 



he piled up every argument that could move 
the heart of the servant of God or influence 
his conscience. This letter affected him 
greatly. He read it several times, and seemed 
much perplexed by it. 

Another appeal came to him from the vil- 
lage publican. "Ah, Monsieur," wrote that 
ill-famed functionary, ''I entreat you not to 
abandon us ! You know that I always told 
you, and I now repeat it from the bottom 
of my heart — "If there is anything in my 
business that you disapprove of, I submit 
myself entirely to your will." Here was a 
testimony not to be doubted. In fact, there 
was a concert of supplications from high and 
low, all repeating the same refrain — ' ' Come 
back to us ! " 

The Cure, moreover, was soon disabused 
of the idea that to escape from Ars was to 
escape from the crowd : the crowd had 
followed him to Dardilly. In a few days 
the village was like a fair. Coaches and 
vehicles of all kinds came laden from Lyons 
with travellers eager to see the man of God, 
whose fame as a saint was great in the rich 
manufacturing city. He had to get faculties 
to hear the confessions of numbers who came 



HIS FI.IGHT TO DARDII.I.Y. 109 

to him from Ars, where they had begun 
their accusations. 

After a week of this involuntary mission 
work, M. Vianney made up his mind to 
leave Dardilly. He knew not where to turn 
his steps, but he could not remain here. 
He therefore set out with Abbe Raymond, 
his dear friend, trusting to Providence to 
guide him to the right place. They 
travelled in a comfortless cart, the jolting of 
which nearly broke M. Vianney to pieces. 
On the road they came to a church, where 
they stopped to say their Office. It was 
empty when they went in, and when they 
were coming out it was full to overflowing. 
No one was aware how it became known 
that the Cure of Ars was there, but somehow 
it had got wind, and the people were re- 
solved he should not go away without speak- 
ing to them and giving them a blessing. 
He did as they desired, addressing them in 
his usual simple but inspired language, and 
leaving them convinced that all they had 
heard of his sanctity was vShort of the realit3^ 

The two travellers continued their road till 
they reached Beaumont, where they passed 
the night. Next morning they both said 



no 



THE CURE OF ARS. 



Mass in an ancient sanctuary of Our Lady, 
which is held in veneration by the faithful. 
The Cure of Ars remained a long time 
absorbed in his thanksgiving. At last he 
lifted his head, which had been bowed on 
his breast, and, bending toward Abbe Ray- 
mond, who was kneeling beside him, he whis- 
pered, Let us go back to Ars, 

Abbe Raymond made a sign of acquiescence, 
rose and went out of the church, and, without 
asking a question or venttuing a remark, 
quietly accompanied the Cure back to his 
parish. The people who had been besieging 
Our Lady and St. Philomena, were wild with 
delight when they beheld him restored to 
them. Laborers hurried from the fields, women 
deserted the wash - tubs, children ran from 
their play, to welcome him; and there was 
joy in the land as of the just rejoicing at 
the return of the prodigal. 



XIII. 

PII.GRIMAGES TO ARS. 

Modern times have seen nothing to compare 
with the pilgrimage of Ars. Of late years 
Lourdes has, it is true, presented to the 



PII<GRIMAGKS TO ARS. Ill 

world an equally striking manifestation of the 
faith of many lands ; but the origin of the 
pilgrimage to the Grotto in the Pyrenees is 
sufficient to explain its universal popularity : 
it was the Mother of God herself who bade 
the nations came there. The '* Immaculate 
Conception" appeared upon the hillside, and 
bade the little shepherdess go and tell the 
people to ''come and drink of the fountain,** 
promising consolation and healing. But no 
such divine command had come forth from 
Ars. The Morning Star had not shone visibly 
amidst visions and promises to entice the 
faithful thither. They were drawn there by 
the holiness, by the saintly life, of a humble 
parish priest, unknown to the world, illiterate, 
poor in all that constitutes power in the eyes 
of men. This is what makes the pilgrimage 
of Ars so remarkable. Since the days of St. 
Bernard, no living saint was so pursued by 
the admiration and reverence of the world as 
was M. Vianney. As a rule, the world has 
waited till the saints were dead before it 
recognized their sanctity and crowned it with 
honor : the Cure of Ars was crowned during 
his lifetime, — crowned with thorns, it is true, 
for it was positive torture to his humility to 



112 THE CURE OF ARS. 

see himself thus pursued by the veneration of 
his fellow-men. 

This veneration had, nevertheless, a con- 
soling significance which could not have 
escaped his discerning spirit : it was a mani- 
festation of faith that triumphantly refuted the 
pessimism and incredulity of the age. While 
the schools of Europe were proclaiming the 
reign of the so-called philosophers and the 
decay of a worn-out Christianity, eighty thou- 
sand pilgrims were journeying every year to 
Ars, simply to honor a man who was the 
extreme representation of the doctrines of the 
worn-out creed, — that and nothing more. The 
world, which professes to doubt and to deride, 
was conquered by the power of this embodi- 
ment of the religion of Jesus Christ in a 
village priest, and hurried from its pleasures 
and its gains to behold it. The poor came 
first, as in the days of Christ. They came, 
and were healed and enlightened; they went 
away proclaiming the wonderful works of 
God. And then the ''wise men" followed, 
and from the West and the East came to 
witness the marvels that were being wrought 
at Ars. Sceptics came and were compelled 
to believe ; sinners long hardened in \dce and 



PII.GRIMAGES TO ARS. II3 

crime came, and were stricken with compunc- 
tion, and went away new-born. These spir- 
itual miracles were more frequent than any 
others. The great thaumaturgus was the 
confessor. 

A pilgrim relates how one bitter cold night, 
after the Cure had retired to rest, there was 
heard a loud knocking at the presbytery door, 
and on his calling out from his window 
to know who was there, a voice answered, 
* ^ Come down ; I want to speak to you. 
Cure ! ' ' The holy man, who had a mortal 
fear of midnight robbers, hesitated ; for the 
speaker was a powerful fellow, in the garb 
of a carter, and with a rough voice. The 
visitor called out a second time, "Come down, 
I tell 3^ou, Cure ! I want to confess, and I 
am in a hurry." This was putting a pistol 
to the Cure's throat. He made the Sign of 
the Cross, and though still trembling with 
fear, hurried down and entered the church. 
The imperious penitent made an excellent 
confession, and the Cure was so grateful to 
him that, not content with giving him the 
mildest penance, he insisted on his carrying 
off a pair of warm socks as a comfort on 
his long drive home. 



114 "^sE cure: of ars. 

This may be taken as a specimen of the 
penitents who in the early days besieged the 
confessional that was one day to be sought 
out by the holiest and the most learned. It 
is God's way to begin every great work with 
the poor and the ignorant ; they are the first 
always to come from afar and follow Him 
three days fasting, and they are the ones 
whom He feeds miraculously on the mountain. 
Later, when they had spread M. Vianney's 
fame abroad, the great ones came and got 
their share ; men of all races and nationalities 
crowded to the confessional of the Cur6 of 
Ars, until he became a slave to its ministry, 
a victim always bound and ready to be sacri- 
ficed on the altar of souls. St. Philip Neri 
had such a dread of misspending time that 
he prayed that he might never have an hour 
in the day to call his own. Whether the 
Cure of Ars ever offered up this prayer we 
know not, but it certainly was granted to 
him ; for he never had five minutes at his 
own disposal. 

There was nothing in his life more admir- 
able than the patience and equanimity with 
which he bore this trial. He let his day be 
devoured by others without ever letting it be 



i 



PII.GRIMAGES TO ARS. II5 

seen that he was suffering. He longed for 
rest as the poor hunted animal longs for it, 
and he never was granted a moment's rest. 
Even his nights were not left free : they were 
invaded by evil spirits, so that he might not 
enjoy the luxury of an hour's quiet prayer 
before his body sought the scanty sleep that 
was necessary for existence. Yet day after 
day, all the day long all the year round, 
the strangers who were struggling for his 
attention found him invariably as calm, as 
collected, as ready to give his whole mind 
to them, as if he had no other interest in 
the world ; never a cloud on his brow, never 
a short word, — nothing that could suggest 
weariness of mind or body. 

The only time of respite he had to look 
forward to through the year was the pastoral 
retreat that he used to attend at Lyons. 
How he longed for that blessed week to 
come round ! How he steeped his soul in 
the quiet and the silence of it ! But even 
this was to be taken from him. So early as 
the year 1835 the bishop, on seeing him 
arrive, eager, cheery, happy as a school-boy 
out for a holiday, met him with the excla- 
mation, *'M. le Curd, you are in no want 



Il6 THK CURfe OF ARS. 

of a retreat, and there are multitudes of souls 
in want of you at Ars. Go back to your 
parish/' And the jaded laborer, without a 
word, without a sign of regret, went back. 
He never made a retreat again after this. 

The amount of work put upon him grew 
with every year. The pilgrimage increased to 
such an extent that the Bishop was obliged 
to send him help, though he thought it un- 
necessary to give him a day's rest. A com- 
munity of missionary priests were sent to 
Ars to assist in ministering to the pilgrims, 
and to share the work that was overwhelm- 
ing M. Vianney. But, however zealous and 
devoted these auxiliaries were, they could not 
prevent the pastor's being the victim of his 
own sublime gifts and marvellous vocation. 
Their work was, nevertheless, blessed in an 
extraordinary degree, and the harvest of souls 
which they reaped was so rich that they 
could only explain it as being an extension 
of M. Vianney' s work, — the result of his 
prayers, and a permitted participation in the 
power exercised by his sanctity on all who 
came to Ars for " the purpose of seeking his 
help. 

Nothing could adequately describe what the 



PII.GRIMAGKS TO ARS. II7 

life of the Cure of Ars was amidst this 
great concourse of penitents, but we gather 
some idea of it from notes taken on the spot 
by a gentleman who went to Ars in order 
to seek his advice concerning some matter of 
vital importance. It was in 1857. On arriv- 
ing at the village, the pilgrim was told that 
M. le Cure was in the church. He walked 
straight there, intending to make his confes- 
sion at once, and expecting to find the Cur6 
quietl}^ saying his breviary, or perhaps making 
his meditation before the Blessed Sacrament. 
Instead of this he found the church crowded. 
Men were gathered round the sanctuary, 
women filled the nave ; some were reading, 
some saying the Rosary, but all wore an air 
of profound recollection. 

''Never," says the pilgrim, "did the ante- 
chamber of king or minister present such an 
aspect of grandeur and majesty; I felt at 
once all the dignity of that lowly minister of 
the- sovereign King of heaven and earth, 
whose sanctity gave him such power and 
drew so many souls to his feet. Meantime I 
looked around for him, and could not see 
him. Some one pointed to the sacristy, and 
told me that he was confessing men there; 



Il8 THE CURi: OF ARS. 

he was at present hearing the confession of those 
who had come the day before. It was now five 
o'clock in the afternoon. Clearl}^, I had no 
chance of seeing the Cure that da}^, being 
at the extreme end of the long chain that 
began at the sacristy door. But I did not 
complain. . . . The door opened and closed as 
the penitents or seekers of advice followed 
one another into the tribunal of the holy 
priest. They were recollected, anxious, their 
expression full of care, when they passed in; 
when they came out they w^ere calm, serene, 
joyous. 

''Two hours passed quickl3^ I forgot to 
reckon time. The scene under one's e^^es so 
filled the soul with thoughts of things divine 
and eternal that one forgot everything else. 
Night fell. It was now eight o'clock. The 
church, instead of growing empty, became 
more crowded. I was told it was the hour 
of evening prayer, and that all the villagers 
came to join in it. M. Vianney came out 
from the sacristy and ascended the pulpit. 
He wore his surplice, which, indeed, he 
never takes off. His w^hole exterior expresses 
his extraordinary sanctit3^ His face, his 
whole person, is thin to emaciation, attest- 



PII.GRIMAGKS TO ARS. II9 

ing the sublime and awful work of mortifi- 
cation and asceticism. . . . The frail and 
bent figure seemed grand and majestic. He 
walked with his head bowed and his lids 
drooping ; his long hair fell about his neck, 
and made the effect of a glory round his 
head. I felt a thrill go through me as he 
passed close to me and I touched the hem of 
his garment. When he entered the pulpit 
every one knelt down, and he began night 
prayers in so feeble a voice that nothing 

reached me but a faint murmur 

*'When the prayers were over he came down 
from the pulpit and went into his house, 
passing between two hedges of people, who 
all knelt to receive his blessing. ... I was 
loth to depart without having spoken to him. 
I inquired what one could do in order to get 
a word with him. A man who was making 
tidy the church, and whom I took for the 
sacristan, told me that if I was there at four 
o'clock in the morning I should be able to 
see him, and get away in the afternoon. I 
resolved to be there at four. Meantime the 
people were going home; the peasants from 
the neighborhood were returning to their 
villages. ... I went to my hotel. 



I20 THK CURE OF ARS. 

''The next morning, Friday, September ii, 
1857, I was up and dressed at four o'clock, 
and in the church before daybreak. I expected 
to find myself the first comer, but I was met 
by the same surprise as the night before. A 
large crowd had already arrived, and, to my 
grievous disappointment, I could only get a 
place a long way off from that blessed door 
which gave access to the Cure, and which I 
was destined, like Moses, to see from afar, 
without entering in. 'How long have you 
been here?' I asked of my neighbors. — 'Since 
two o'clock this morning.' — 'And when did 
the Cure come?' — 'At midnight.' — 'Where is 
he now?' — 'Yonder, in the confessional behind 
the choir. 'He is confessing women now. 
This is his usual occupation on Friday 
morning. He will only receive men after 
Mass.' — 'Then what are all those men that I 
see there doing?' — 'They are keeping their 
places. They were waiting when the Cur6 
came.' ... I was astounded. I knew that men 
are capable of prodigious patience when their 
interests or their pleastues are at stake; that 
they will 'make tail' for hours to get a place 
in the theatre ; I had known of their spending 
days and nights waiting in the Rue Quin- 



PII.GRIMAGKS TO ARS. 121 

campoix to secure shares in the Mississippi. 
I had never before seen men make the same 
sacrifice of time and rest for the sake of a 
purely spiritual gain; and the spectacle, which 
reminded me of some scene from the Gospel, 
went to my heart and moved me to tears. . . . 

"All the same I was vexed with the sacris- 
tan for not having warned me that I should 
pass the night at the door of the church, and 
so escape being relegated to the last place. I 
looked awry at him as he came and went 
arranging the chairs, etc. There was a calm 
dignity about him, however, that was remarkable. 
Upon inquiry I learned that he was a man 
of the world, who, having been cured and con- 
verted by the Cure of Ars, had devoted him- 
self, out of gratitude, to the laborious and 
thankless task that I saw him performing so 
assiduously. He kept order in the church 
while the Cure was confessing; and, as the 
Cure often confessed twenty hours out of the 
twenty-four, this was no trifle. . . . 

''At six o'clock the curate came to say Mass. 
At seven, after sitting from midnight, the Cure 
came out of the confessional, with the cahn, 
rested air that was habitual to him, and passed 
into the sacristy to prepare for Mass. I had 



122 THE CURB OF ARS. 

contrived to slip into the sacristy while the 
curate was there. ' Stay quietly here, ^ he 
said to me ; ' perhaps the Cure may consent 
to hear you before he goes up to the altar.* 
But the Cure, Who sees by a glance the state 
of souls and their necessities, did not feel 
moved to satisfy my impatience. All that 
I gained by the attempt was to feel his 
sweet and piercing gaze fixed on me for a 
moment, and to see him getting ready to 

say Mass I followed him to the altar 

of St. Philomena, for whom he has a special 
veneration. It is here that he always says 
his Mass; it is here that he obtains numbers 

of miracles 

**His Mass over, I fancied he might be 
approached, but I was again mistaken. The 
church was overflowing with people, and the 
crowd separated me from him while he was 
going to the sacristy. . . . He reappeared in 
his surplice on the steps of the choir, and 
the multitude of pilgrims pressed toward him, 
with quantities of beads and medals to be 
blessed, with children on whom he was to 
lay his hands. When this was done he 
went into the little sacristy at the right 
side of the church, where he received, one 



PII^GRIMAGKS TO ARS. 1 23 

by one, ladies who had come from a distance 
to consult him. At the end of about an 
hour he came out again, and began the 

confessions of the men I was near 

losing patience, but a moment's reflection 
made me ashamed of myself. 

*'It was nearly nine o'clock. The same 
scene was continued at the door of the 
sacristy, which had again become inaccessible 
to me. Everyone took his place and waited 
his turn. Sometimes the Cure himself pointed 
out the person he wished to admit, and no 
one dreamed of complaining of this. That the 
great infirmities should be healed first seemed 
fair to all. Now and then penitents who had 
just been absolved went up to the altar, and 
the curate came and gave them Holy Com- 
munion. 

''This sublime drama of charity had lasted 
ten hours. The chief actor in it had not 
for one moment slackened nor suspended his 
activity. There he was, always on the stage, 
always indefatigable. I, who had only arrived 
four hours after him, — I was already feeling 
overcome by fatigue and want of food. Before 
giving up, however, I resolved to make one 
more attack on the impregnable sacristy. With 



124 'I'HE cure: of ars. 

the help of the obliging auxiliary of the saint 
I contrived to place myself opposite the door, 
so that when the Cure opened it to admit a 
newcomer he saw me straight before him ; 
he seemed to recognize me, and signed to 
me to come in. We both remained standing. 
Anxious not to take up unnecessarily one 
moment of the precious time of the holy 
man, I put briefly and rapidly two questions 
I had prepared. He answered me at once, 
emphatically, without seeming to reflect, — 
without the least hesitation, but also without 
the least hurry ; and his replies were just 
what was most sensible, wise, and also 
most easily and usefully put in practice. Most 
men are obliged to think, to pause, to weigh 
a plan, before deciding the best coiurse to be 
taken. The Cure of Ars improvised wisdom. 
I was amazed to see how calm, how ready 
his presence of mind was under such conditions. 
Since midnight he had been besieged without 
respite ; he gave himself no breathing space ; 
he had had to answer several hundred per- 
sons. While I spoke to him a man was 
kneeling at the prie-dieu waiting to confess ; 
a great multitude of others were crowding 
round the door like the rising tide of the 



i 



PII.GRIMAGKS TO ARS. 1 25 

sea. And the holy priest was there amidst 
it all, giving himself to each one, without 
impatience, without apparent fatigue, his 
heart always open, his mind alwa^^s ready, his 
frail body in constant activity. Assuredly this 
was not human, this was not natural. . . . 

''After his brief answers and a few words 
exchanged, — the whole not lasting more 
than five minutes, — I bowed my head ; he 
blessed me; I kissed his hand and withdrew, 
full of joy, of strength, and of veneration, 
I was glad also to be free. I took advantage 
of it to enjoy the fresh air and walk through 
the village, which I had not had time to see. 
In about half an hour I hastened back to the 
church to assist at what was called M. le Cure's 
catechism. It was an instruction that he 
delivered every day before noon, after the 
fatigue and hard work of those terrible sittings. 
The church was now so full that I could 
scarcely find standing room near the choir. 
The Cure came out and sat down on a chair 
placed against the high altar, and the homily 
began. The holy man's eloquence was cer- 
tainly not in his language. Though ver}^ near 
him, I could hardly hear what he said ; for 
besides the extreme feebleness of his voice, 



126 



THK cure; of ARS. 



the' total loss of his teeth made his speech 
utterly unintelligible. But he was eloquent by 
his countenance, by his action, — above all, by 
the authority of his life and the ascendancy 
of his works. And what power he had over 
his audience ! This was the closing scene and 
the most beautiful one. The crowd had gathered 
round him; at his feet, on the altar steps, on 
the floor of the choir, people of all ages and 
conditions were pressing up to him, all ab- 
sorbed in breathless attention, their necks 
strained, their eyes fixed on him. For if you 
could not hear him you saw him, and this 
was enough : his whole person spoke distinctly. 
He shuddered with horror when he spoke of 
sin ; he shed tears in alluding to the offence 
against God; he was like one rapt in ecstasy 
when he dwelt on divine love; he grew pale 
and red by turns. ... I repeat : you heard very 
little, but you felt everything. . . . Like St. 
John, he kept repeating, ' My children ! * And 
the people listened as to a father. . . . 

*^ Midday struck as the Cure ceased speak- 
ing and returned to the presbytery, to seek in 
mortification and prayer the strength to take 
up again, two or three hours later, his life of 
immolation and sacrifice. As for me, I left the 



PII.GRIMAGKS "TO ARS. 1 27 

village of Ars carrying with me as a treasure 
the blessing of the Abbe Vianney and the 
indelible remembrance of the wonders of 
charity and holiness that I had witnessed. I 
saw no special miracle but I beheld the 
miracle of his daily life, — that life of which 
each day resembled exactly the one it had 
been given me to contemplate.'' 

If the writer had been permitted to follow 
M. Vianney into the presbytery, he would 
have witnessed another phase of his miracu- 
lous existence, as marvellous in its way 
as any that he has chronicled. He would 
have seen the little oak table of the Cur6's 
room covered with letters from all parts of 
the world, and he would have seen him get 
through this voluminous correspondence while 
he ate what he called his dinner, — a meal 
that consisted of a few cold potatoes, a piece 
of bread and a glass of water. The moment 
he opened a letter he saw whether it was 
worth reading or not. Those that contained 
money for Masses he handed to his curate; 
those that were confidential he read in silence 
and at once tore up ; those that began with 
compliments and flattering formulas — ''The 
fame of your sanctity," — ''The gift of miracles 



128 THB cure: of ARS. 

which your great holiness," etc., — were 
immediately torn up, and thrown into the 
grate with a gesture of impatience. The Cur6 
had nearly always dispatched the morning's 
correspondence by the time he had eaten his 
cold potatoes ; any letters that were not 
opened during that interval ran a great risk 
of never being opened. 

These letters that poured in on him were 
from people of all ranks, characters, and 
countries : they formed a concert of souls 
crying out for help and light in every sor- 
row or difficulty that life in its endless com- 
plications presents. Amongst these petitioners 
were saints and sinners, bishops and politi- 
cians, convicts and Carmelites, soldiers and 
monks, actors and journalists ; wives, mothers, 
young girls aspiring to devote their innocent 
souls to God ; others who had fallen into sin 
and were longing to rise up and lead penitent 
lives. There was not a form or degree of 
human misery or pain that did not find a 
voice in the correspondence that awaited the 
tired confessor on that little table after his 
long night and morning in the church. 



HIS MIRACI^KS. 129 

XIV. 
HIS MIRACIvKS. 

What the holy man suffered from mere physical 
exhaustion can hardly be conceived. We get 
some idea of it from the testimony of a 
pilgrim, who, after practising the necessary 
amount of patience, got near to the door of 
the Cure's confessional. ''As I knelt," he 
says, ''I heard a sound, a kind of sob, that 
I can not describe. Was it a cry of pain ? 
Every ten minutes or so the same sound was 
repeated. It was fatigue that forced it from 
the panting breast of the Cure of Ars." 

No miracle, we repeat it, so manifested the 
supernatural gifts of the servant of God as 
this power of his spirit to sustain his faint- 
ing, trembling body — his ''poor carcass," as 
he aptly enough called it, — under the tremen- 
dous load of his daily labor. And yet how 
innumerable were the other miracles that he 
worked daily and almost unconsciously ! He 
strove to hide them as if they were evil 
deeds that would bring disgrace upon him, 
and was often heard reproaching St. Philo- 



130 THK CURB OF ARS. 

mena for covering him with confusion by- 
working her cures through his hands and in 
his presence instead of waiting till he was 
out of the way. He seemed to shrink from 
using the gift of healing that had been 
given him, and would gladly have confined 
it to the cure of souls, had this been 
possible. 

His devoted servant, Catherine I^assagne, 
tells us how he used to naively upbraid his 
*' dear little Saint'' with occupying herself so 
much with the healing of bodies, when she 
ought to be thinking of souls that stood so 
much more in need of being healed. But the 
dear little Saint paid no attention to these 
complaints. She continued to give sight to 
the blind and hearing to the deaf, to restore 
health to bodies stricken with mortal diseases, 
to cause ulcers and cancers to disappear 
instantaneously, and to ' ' cover with confusion ' ^ 
the humble priest who was the instrument 
of these wonders worked through her inter- 
cession. 

Sometimes God humored the humility of 
His servant by deferring the miracle until 
the Cure was out of sight. Once, for in« 
stance, a fiddler, who played at all the 



HIS miraci.es. 131 

village dances for miles around, came to beg 
the cure of his lame child. The Cure per- 
suaded him to go to confession, extracted a 
promise from him to mend his life, and sent 
him away with a blessing. The man, on 
returning home, took his fiddle and threw it 
into the fire ; upon seeing which his wife 
uttered a cry of dismay, and simultaneously 
came a cry of joy from the lame child, who 
began to leap about the room, exclaiming, "I 
am cured ! I am cured ! ' ' The Cure loved to 
tell of this miracle, the credit of which he 
fancied could in no way be reflected on him- 
self. He would often refuse to pray for, or 
lay hands on the sick, but would give them 
a medal of St. Philomena, and desire them 
to make a novena to her ; and when at the 
end of it the miracle was granted, he would 
express delight and amazement, as if his 
prayers had nothing to do with it, — as if he 
had never expected it. 

Now and then, when his tender heart was 
stirred by the sight of some painful infirmity, 
he would bless and touch the sufferer ' ' on 
the vsly," and then look innocently surprised 
when the miracle was performed. A poor 
woman came from a distant village, carrying 



132 THK CURfe OF ARS. 

on her back a boy eight years old, who had 
been paralyzed from his birth. She waited 
in the church all day without being able to 
get near enough to the Cure to speak to 
him ; but whenever he came within sight of 
her she held out the child to him with an 
expression of supplication so intense that all 
the people were filled with pity for her. But 
the Cure did not even glance toward her. 
When he went into the confessional he 
saw her standing there with her arms out- 
stretched, but he passed on without raising his 
eyes ; when he came out there she was, still 
holding up the child in mute appeal ; but 
the Cure took no notice. At last, as he was 
going into the sacristy, he raised his hand 
and blessed the little paralytic, but without 
touching him or even looking at him. 

Worn out with fatigue, and sick at heart 
with disappointment, the poor woman went 
away to spend the night in a miserable lodg- 
ing. Suddenly, as she was undressing the 
child, he said : ' ^ Mother you must go out 
early and buy me a pair of sabots ; for M. 
le Cur6 promised me that I should walk to- 
morrow.'' Had the saintly man spoken in a 
whisper to the child unperceived by the 



HIS MIRACI.KS. 133 

motiier, or was it the Holy Ghost that had 
whispered the promise to him, no one could 
tell; but, obeying the boy's desire, the 
mother went out at the sound of the first 
bell and bought the wooden shoes. Scarcely 
had she put them on his feet when he 
sprang up and stood, and began to leap 
about the room ; and before the delighted 
mother had realized the wonderful change he 
had escaped from her, and was running to 
the church, crying out, ''I am cured! I 
am cured!" She followed him, weeping 
tears of joy ; and seeing the curate, she begged 
him to take her to M. Vianney that she 
might express to him her gratitude and ask 
his blessing. But when they approached 
the holy man with this request they were 
motioned away with a stern gesture. The 
Cure began to prepare to say his Mass. The 
curate waited till it was over, and then 
courageously returned to the assault. ' ' Mon- 
sieur le Cure, you can't refuse to help this 
poor woman to thank St. Philomena ! " he 
pleaded. M. Vianney, conquered at last, 
turned toward the mother and the little boy 
and blessed them, muttering in a tone of 
childish vexation as he moved away, *'St. 



134 '^^^ CURE OF ARS. 

Philomena might just as well have cured 
that child at home ! '' 

The miracles that he worked without 
scruple or timidity were those of the spiritual 
order, — those by which diseased souls were 
healed, dead souls raised to life, — those 
stupendous miracles that send joy to the 
seventh heavens, and which sometimes we see 
performed under our eyes without being the 
least moved by them. M. Vianney's power 
for healing and resuscitating souls was the 
grandest gift that had been bestowed upon 
him, and he exercised it with a diligence 
that was equal to his zeal. His love for 
souls was Christ-like ; it was a flame that 
set on fire all who drew near to it. It 
would probably be within the truth to say 
that many thousands of sinners were con- 
verted by the mere longing of his soul as his 
eyes rested on them. 

People were constantly converted by the 
spectacle of the Cure of Ars saying Mass. A 
virtue came out of his aspect at the altar 
that smote the hardest hearts, revived dead 
faith in souls, and sent them away renewed 
to life. A well-known savant^ who had 
lost every trace of faith, was induced by a 



HIS MIRACI.KS. 135 

friend to stop at Ars on his way to a 
scientific mission. He was highly amused 
when his friend asked him to come and 
assist at the Cure's Mass, for he had never 
''been guilty of that act of superstition" 
since his First Communion ; however, he 
went. When Mass was over he felt a great 
load suddenly weighing down his shoulders ; 
his head fell upon his breast, and he could 
not lift it. The Cure, in passing from the 
altar, laid his thin hand upon the bowed 
head, and desired the gentleman to come 
into the sacristy. The latter rose at once, 
and falling on his knees exclaimed, ''M. le 
Cure, I am crushed down by an awful 
weight on my shoulders ! '' The holy man 
smiled, and, ''in a voice so sweet that it 
sounded like nothing human," answered : 
' ' When you have confessed the story of 
your poor life Our Lord will Himself relieve 
you of your load ; for He has said, ' Come 
to Me, all you that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will refresh you.' " The un- 
believer made his confession ; when he left 
Ars he was a fervent Christian, and remained 
so ever after. 

M. Vianney worked these spiritual miracles 



136 THE cure: of ARS. 

every day in the holy tribunal. Once a 
young man came to him and made his con- 
fession, but without any real contrition for 
his sins. The servant of God began to dilate 
on the love of God and the cruelty of 
wounding His divine Heart by sin, until, 
overcome b}^ his own fervor, he burst into 
tears and wept copiously, wiping away the 
tears quietl}^ with the back of his hand. 
The penitent, in surprise, asked him why he 
wept so. ''Alas, nw son," was the reply, 
' ' I weep because 3^ou do not weep ! ' ' Where- 
upon the young man, stricken with heartfelt 
compunction, bewailed his sins, and received 
absolution in sentiments of the deepest peni-- 
tence. 

A young man who had been brought up 
by a Christian mother lost his faith, and 
was leading such a wild life that his family 
at last decided to make him enlist, as the 
only means of cutting short his dissolute 
career. His mother, who, like another 
Monica, never ceased weeping and praying 
for his conversion, was inconsolable ; for it 
seemed to her as if, in sending him oJ0F 
a-soldiering, they were placing him beyond all 
hope of redemption. She resolved to make 



HIS MIRACI.KS. 137 

a last effort to save him. The young man's 
sole remaining virtue was love for his mother, 
and she entreated him before going to join his 
regiment to come with her to Ars. He burst 
out laughing at the proposal ; but seeing the tears 
in her eyes he consented, and they set out to- 
gether. When they reached Ars it was just the 
hour for the instruction on the catechism. The 
young man was very reluctant to go to the 
church; but he yielded again to his mother's- 
wishes, and they went. No sooner did he find- 
himself in the presence of the servant of God 
than he was ** seized with a shuddering," as 
he described it ; and when those luminous 
blue eyes singled him out and rested on 
him, he felt as if they were piercing him 
through and through, looking right into the 
depths of his guilty conscience. 

He left the church in a strange inward 
agitation, and his mother had the greatest 
difficulty to persuade him to return in the 
afternoon. She succeeded, however, and they 
took their places amongst the crowd and 
waited vSome time ; then the sacristy door 
opened, and M. Vianney came forward and 
made a sign to him to advance. Scarcely 
conscious of what he was doing, the young 



138 THE CURfi^ OF ARS. 



man rose, everybody making way for him 
and he passed into the sacristy. The door 
closed behind him, and some force outside 
his will made his knees bend under him, 
and he found himself in the confessional. He 
could neither move nor speak, but listened in 
trembling bewilderment to the exhortation of 
the man of God. It lasted only a few 
minutes ; then the Cure said : ' ' Go and say 
five Paters and Aves before the altar of St. 
Philomena." The unwilling penitent rose at 
once and did as he was told. As he knelt 
before the image of the ''dear little Saint" 
his eyes were opened and the hardness of 
his heart was overcome. He shed floods of 
tears ; the horror of his life of sin was made 
clear to him, and he rose thoroughly con- 
verted. He remained at Ars to make a re- 
treat, and, after six months' persevering 
penance, entered a religious communit}^ where 
he embraced an austere life, and found the 
hundredfold promised in this world to those 
who leave all for God's sake. 

These miracles worked upon souls by the 
disciple of Him whose glance falling on the 
guilty Apostle sent him forth ''weeping bitterly," 
are so numerous that they would fill a little 



A 



HIS MIRACI.es. 139 

volume by themselves. Learned professors, 
primed and loaded with the science which is 
supposed to have replaced Christianity, came 
to Ars intending to confound the wily 
priest who was making so many dupes ; but 
it was in every case they who were con- 
founded, and who went away confessing the 
wonderful works of God and His servant. 

Sometimes the supernatural beauty of the 
Cure's soul was made visible by external 
signs, and God let it shine before sinners 
in order to conquer and convert them. One 
day a hardened libertine came to Ars, — drawn 
there either by curiosity or some interested 
motive, for he absolutely refused to listen to 
the entreaties of the Cur6 to think of his soul. 
The servant of God tried in vain the effect 
of tears, caresses and warnings : the unfortunate 
man turned obdurately away, and was leaving 
the sacristy when, at the door, he looked 
back to salute the Cure, and suddenl}^ with 
a cry fell upon his knees and burst into 
tears. He beheld a glory of light round the 
head of the venerable priest, and saw his 
face shining like the face of an angel ; and 
his heart was converted in an instant. Sur- 
prised at this extraordinary change, M. 



140 THE CURE OF ARS. 

Vianney asked him what it meant, and he 
replied : ' ' I see a circle of lights shining 
round your head." The holy man was 
amused at the declaration, but he heard the 
convert's confession, and spoke to him with 
burning fervor of the awful nature of sin. 
''Ah, just cast one glance at Jesus on the 
Cross," he exclaimed in tears," and sa^^ to 
yourself: 'This is what it cost my Saviour 
to repair the injuries that my sins have done 
to God! — a God who came down on earth to 
be a victim for me, — a God who suffers, a 
God who dies, a God who endtues every 
species of torment because He wishes to bear 
the burden of our crimes/ What a pit^^ it 
is ! God will say to you at the hour of 
death: 'Why have you offended Me, — I who 
loved you so much ? ' O my son ! to offend 
God who is so good to us, and to gratify 
the devil who only wants to hurt us, — what 
folly ! What a pity it is ! " His familiar 
expression, ''Que d est dommage I ^^ was irre- 
sistible on his lips: above all when it was 
accompanied by the clasping of his hands, 
and the beseeching glance of those clear 
sweet eyes. 



SYMPATHY WITH THK SORROWFUI.. I4I 



XV. 

HIS SYMPATHY WITH THK SORROWFUI. — I.ONG- 
ING FOR QUIKT COMMUNING WITH GOD. 

It was not alone spiritual poverty — the 
miseries of the soul — that drew from him 
those tears and that exclamation of pity. The 
heart of M. Vianney was always ready to sym- 
pathize with human sorrow or pain in what- 
ever form it came before him; his compassion 
went out spontaneously to every sufferer who 
came to him for consolation, whether the 
subject of it was moral or physical tribulation. 
Sickness, disappointment, blighted affection, 
reverse of fortune, — he was sorry for it all. 
Many an aching heart that went to him in 
despair felt the load of trouble suddenly light- 
ened by the sympathy that expressed itself 
in his eyes and the tone of his voice; he 
lessened pain by sheer force of participation. 

But it was in the great and deep sorrows of 
life that the Cure\s power of consolation was 
chiefly efficacious. A young widow was dying 
in despair because she was leaving four little 



142 THE cur:§: of ars. 

children behind her, utterly without protec- 
tion. The servant of God heard of her anguish 
and hastened to her bedside. When he left 
her, she was not only resigned but happy at 
the thought of confiding her children to the 
sole care of God. A man of the world came 
to Ars distracted with rebellious grief at the 
death of a beloved wife. M. Vianney took him 
to his heart, comforted him, and sent him 
away resigned and full of courage. 

And yet this soul that was a fountain of 
heavenly sweetness, abundantly replenished, 
and ever ready to overflow on others, was 
steeped in that vinegar and gall that Jesus 
tasted on the cross. The Cure of Ars suJBFered 
from interior desolation to a degree and for 
a length of time seldom exceeded in the 
records of the lives of the saints. He saw 
his sins like a great black mountain between 
himself and God ; he believed that it was 
only a miracle of divine mercy that had kept 
him so long out of hell, and that he was 
liable at any moment to commit some heinous 
sin which would exhaust the patience of 
God, and draw down upon him the eternal 
punishment that had so long been warded off. 

The trial was, no doubt, a special grace 



SYMPATHY WITH THK SORROWFUL. 143 

from Heaven in order to guard his humility 
from the least taint of presumption, to keep 
him blind to the cause of those supernatural 
favors which drew the nations to. his feet. 
While the whole world was running after 
him as a saint, M. Vianney was tortured by 
the conviction that he was a vile hypocrite; 
that, owing to his sins, he was the sport of the 
devil, who was permitted to make use of him 
to deceive souls and dishonor the priesthood. 
What he suffered from this delusion, from the 
agonies of remorse with which it filled him, 
is not to be described. He frequently said to 
his confessor that if the mercy of God did not 
hide from him in some meavSure the hideous- 
ness of his soul and the multitude of his sins, 
he must die of despair ; as it was, he only kept 
up his courage by cowering before the tab- 
ernacle "like a dog at the feet of his master." 
He was oppressed with a burden of weariness, 
anguish and disgust that was ahnost intolerable. 
He saw himself as a stumbling-block in the 
way of every one around him ; his soul was 
a prey to fear and remorse ; he was in con- 
stant terror of falling into some grievous sin 
that would separ;ite him forever from the love 
and enjoyment of God ; he felt himself every 



144 'I'HK CURfe OF ARS. 

day he lived more unworthy of his sublime 
vocation, more unfit to celebrate the divine 
mysteries. 

When the subject of the priesthood was men- 
tioned before him, he would sometimes speak out 
from the abundance of his heart what he felt 
about it. One day a fervent and talented 
young priest remarked that there were many 
excellent men amongst the clergy. "What 
do you say, my friend?" exclaimed M. 
Vianney. ''Good men amongst us! Yes, 
assuredly there are. But one ought to be a 
seraph to say Mass I Ah, if we knew what 
Mass is we should die of it ! We shall only 
know it in heaven. My child, the cause of 
all our misfortunes, of every falling oflF 
amongst priests, is that we don't think 
enough about saying Mass." (Here his tears 
flowed unrestrainedly.) "Oh, when I think 
that God has deigned to entrust such a 
privilege to wretches like us ! What does 
the harm is all this worldly news, those 
conversations, those politics, those newspapers. 
Priests get their heads filled with them, and 
then go to their Mass, to their breviar3^" 

He used to say to his Bishop : "If you 
want to convert your diocese make all 3'our 



SYMPATHY WITH THE SORROWFUL. 1 45 

parish priests saints." He felt at times so 
overpowered by the responsibility of the 
priesthood that he was tempted to run away 
and hide himself. ''Oh, what an awful thing 
it is to be a priest!" he exclaimed to a 
young ecclesiastic. ' ' Confession, Sacraments, 
Mass, — what a load to carry! If men realized 
what it is to be a priest they would fly to 
the desert, like the saints, to escape it." 
This longing for the desert, for peace — 
that solitary but supreme happiness that is 
attainable on earth, — increased with his years. 
He once said to a dear friend : ' ' I am 
withering away with weariness. My soul is 
sorrowful unto death. I have not a moment 
for communing quietly with God. I can bear 
it no longer ! Tell me, do you think it 
would be a great sin if I were to disobey 
the Bishop, and go secretly away?" — ''If 
you were to yield to that temptation," was 
the reply, "you would lose all the merit of 
your lifetime." This answer dispelled the 
temptation for the moment — but only for the 
moment; it continued to assault him to the 
end of his days. Nor can we wonder at 
this when we reflect on what he suffered 
from his daily imprisonment in the confessional 



146 THE CURi: OF ARS. 



alone. The atmosphere that his soul breathed 
in that chamber of torture to every priest, 
was a prolonged anguish capable of driving 
mad any one but a saint. He whose soul 
was so angelically pure was steeped mentally 
in an atmosphere of sin for eighteen, some- 
times twenty, hours in the day; he had to 
listen to avowals of outrages against the purity, 
the love, the holy justice of God, from souls 
whose imperfect sorrow prevented them from 
even suspecting the torture they were inflict- 
ing on him. The physical distress that he 
endured from the bad air of the confessional, 
its cramping space, from the heat and the 
cold, was nothing, absolutely nothing, com- 
pared to the suffering his soul had to endtue 
through these long sittings. 

One day, at his instruction on the catechism, 
he was led to speak of the priest's mission 
in the confessional. Suddenly, as if carried 
aw^a3^ by his feelings, he exclaimed: "Ah, 
there is no one in the world so wretched as 
a priest ! He spends his life hearing of 
offences against God, of outrages against His 
holy name. His Commandments. He is like 
Peter in the Pretorium : he has always before 
his e^^es Our Lord insulted, despised, mocked, 



1 



SYMPATHY WITH THE SORROWFUL. 1 47 

covered with opprobrium. Some are spitting 
in His face, others are striking Him ; others 
are pressing the crown of thorns on His dear 
head. The}' push Him rudely; they knock 
Him down ; the}^ kick Him ; they crucify 
Him; they pierce His Sacred Heart. Ah, if 
I had known what it is to be a priest, 
instead of going to the seminary I should 
have run awa}^ to La Trappe ! ' ' 

The Cure generally suflFered more from 
desolation and spiritual anguish on Frida}' than 
on other days. On other days he was able to 
control the appearance of it, but on Friday and 
on the eve of the great feasts the sufferings of 
his soul were visible in his countenance. The 
crowd of pilgrims and penitents that lay in 
wait to speak to him as he passed from the 
church to the presbyter}^ after his catechism, 
used to notice how changed his face was on 
Friday, as if he were overpowered with bodily 
pain and mental anxiet3\ He took refuge in 
increased prayer from this recurring martyr- 
dom, and performed more rigorous austerities 
while it lasted. But it never in the slightest 
degree marred his sweetness, or interfered 
with the clearness of his mind or the quick- 
ness of his judgment. 



148 the: CURfi OF ARS. 



XVI. 

THE CUR:e: as a COUNSEIvIvOR. 

No incident of this day was more calcu- 
lated to illustrate this than the open-air 
audiences he gave in the courtyard at noon, 
when questions on every imaginable subject 
were showered upon him as he passed through 
the crowd. An eye-witness one day wrote 
down a certain number of these questions as 
he caught them, uttered almost simultaneously 
by the eager multitude. They fill a couple 
of printed pages. Here are a few of them : 
** Father, my son is threatened with blindness; 
ought I to risk an operation for him?" — 
**M3^ husband is ill; will he be converted?" — 
** Father, I am failing in health; ought I 
take a partner into my business?" — ''Must I 
send away my servant?" — ''Ought I sell my 
land just now?" — "Which is the best college 
to send my son to?" — "Ought I put my 
son on the railway or in trade?" — "I have 
had a proposal of marriage for my daughter; 



THE CUR:e: as a COUNSKI.I.OR. 1 49 

ought I to accept it?" — "My son wants to 
marry a young girl who has no money; what 
must I do about it?" — "Father, what is the 
truth about Louis XVII?"— "Ought we to 
believe in I^a Salette?" — and so on. 

It was not unusual for women to ask the 
Cur6^s opinion, en passant, as to the way 
they should attire themselves — whether they 
ought to wear a crinoline or not. His delicate 
sense of humor was sometimes tickled by 
these queries, and his answers were none the 
less wise and to the point for having a 
touch of irony in them. A lady cried out 
to him one day : ' * Father, is my husband 
in Purgatory ? ' ' The holy man looked at 
her with a twinkle in his blue eyes, and re- 
plied : "I have not been there to see.'' 
Another exclaimed as he passed her: "Oh, 
M. le Cure, I am mortally afraid of hell!" 
— "Then you are the less likely to go there, 
my daughter." When an importunate pilgrim 
assured him in a rather indignant tone that 
she had come two hundred leagues to see 
him, he answered with an amused smile : 
* * It was not worth while coming so far to 
see so little, Madame." A young girl, full 
of her own importance, begged him to ex- 



150 THE CURfe OF ARS. 

amine and decide her vocation. "Your voca- 
tion is to save your soul and go to heaven," 
he replied, and passed on. 

But these were exceptional incidents. As 
a rule, all who came for advice and direction 
approached the servant of God with discretion, 
and were met with generous sympathy and 
inspired counsel. A learned prelate who spent 
several days at Ars, watching the Cur6 
incessantly, said that nothing in his life and 
conduct impressed him so much as the un- 
erring judgment and presence of mind with 
which he decided the cases submitted to him 
all day long, both in the confessional and 
out of it. He answered every question as if 
he had been studying the circumstances, and 
had weighed the consequences on all sides ; 
speaking briefly, promptly, and in a tone of 
authority that inspired absolute confidence. 
You felt that he drew his inspiration from 
God and the Holy Spirit direct, and that, as 
Monseigneur Devie said, ''if he is not learned 
he is enlightened." 

The Cure of Ars felt keenly, nevertheless, 
the responsibility that he incurred in thus 
deciding the doubts and difficulties of souls; 
and this was, no doubt, one of the many 



THE CURfe AS A COUNSKI.I.OR. 151 

burdens that weiglied him down, sometimes 
making the desire to escape into solitude almost 
irresistible. He was often heard to say that it 
was harder for a parish priest to become a 
saint than for a Christian in any other state 
of life. When Monseigneur Dupanloup, in 
answer to his lamentations concerning the 
difl&culty he had in saving his soul at Ars, re- 
marked that a bishop had heavier responsibil- 
ities than a parish priest, the holy man retorted : 
''Yet there are a great many more bishops in. 
the Martyrology than cures; there are very 
few cures amongst the saints. It is I who ought. 
to tremble ! ' ' And he shook his head with 
a gesture of despair. 

Once again, not long before his death, this 
awful sense of responsibility, together with 
his longing for closer union with God in sol- 
itude, induced him to attempt a flight. He 
confided his project to Catherine I^assagne, 
and made everything ready to steal away in 
the night-time; but God wished him to remain, 
the victim of active charity for innumerable 
souls that still needed him. He was suspected 
of harboring some such design, and watched ; 
and as he stole from his room with a lighted 
candle, spies from the house opposite came 



152 THE CURE) OF ARS. 

down into the street, and called out the 
penitents who were waiting in the chinrch, 
and so a crowd was quickly collected round 
the baffled fugitive. One of the spectators 
asked him in a severe tone if he was not 
afraid of committing a grievous sin by aban- 
doning his charge and disobeying his supe- 
rior. The Cure made no reply, but, like a 
frightened child, looked timidly at the speaker. 
The people, following up their advantage, 
'Clamored out : ' * And will you go away with- 
out hearing us, who have come such a long 
way to make our confession to you?'' The 
servant of God still remained silent, but he 
looked toward the church, as if expecting to 
see some sign there ; and the crowd, pressing 
him on all sides, moved on to the open door, 
■ almOvSt carrying him into the church. He 
made no resistance, but went straight up to 
vthe altar and prostrated himself before the 
tabernacle, and wept bitterly for a long time; 
then he rose and walked into the confessional, as 
if nothing had happened. This was his last 
attempt to fly from Ars. 



VISITORS TO ARS. 1 53. 



XVII. 



VISITORS TO ARS. 



It is probable that one of his reasons for 
wishing to leave the place was the extraordi- 
nary reputation for sanctity that he enjoyed 
there, and the manifestation of love and rev- 
erence of which he was constantly the object. 
His humility led him to attribute this partly 
to the naive credulity of the population, and 
partly to his own hypocrisy ; but, explain the 
fact as he would, he suffered from it, and it 
seemed to him that the delusion was a local 
one, — that it would vanish if he could but 
get away from Ars. He saw, nevertheless, 
that amongst the crowd which thronged the 
village church night and day there were 
strangers from almost every land under the 
sun ; numbers of them were men known to 
the whole world, and whose estimate of him 
could not by any artifice of humility be set 
down to the simplicity of ignorance or over- 
credulous faith. A learned historian — more 
learned in profane than sacred lore — on 



154 



THE CURE OF ARS. 



witnessing this concourse of men of many 
races at Ars, exclaimed : * ' The like has 
never been seen since Bethlehem!'' Certainly 
the spectacle was rare enough to remind a 
thoughtless world of those ages of faith when 
thousands left their homes and journeyed 
over land and water to witness a Bernard or 
a Dominic, in order to kindle their souls at 
the flame of those wonder - working apostles 
of Christ Crucified. 

Amongst the notable men who during 
thirty odd years made the pilgrimage to Ars, 
there was, perhaps, not one whose visit so 
surprised and delighted M. Vianney as that 
of Pere Lacordaire. When the white habit of 
the celebrated Dominican was seen in the 
village, the people pointed after him, remark- 
ing, ''The great preacher has come to see our 
Cure ! ' ' And when they beheld him amidst 
the crowd listening with rapt attention to 
M. Vianney 's catechism, their pleasure was 
equal to their admiration. It was, indeed, a 
touching thing to see Genius sitting thus 
humbly at the feet of Sanctity, — to see the 
orator whose eloquence enthralled the greatest 
intellects of the age, hanging with devout 
reverence on the almost inarticulate words of 



VISITORS TO ARS. 1 55 

the lowly, illiterate parish priest. M. Vianney 
himself could hardly believe it, and exclaimed 
in amazement: "All that is greatest in 
learning came in the person of Pere Lacordaire 
to bow down before all that is lowest in 
ignorance! The two extremes have met." 
Pere lyacordaire, on his side, was profoundly 
moved by the fervor and holiness that breathed 
in every word and gesture and look of the 
servant of God. The simple discourse seemed 
to him the word of inspiration, and it was 
with reluctance that he consented to address 
the congregation from the same pulpit. But 
in this the Cure was not to be denied ; 
with a radiant countenance and a gentle 
touch of humor he announced to his flock: 
*'At Vespers somebody will speak who speaks 
rather better than I ! " Pere Lacordaire kept 
the promise ; but he asked pardon for it ; 
assuring the congregation that he had only 
consented to address them out of respect to 
the wish of their beloved pastor, whose teaching 
was so much better than his. "I came here 
to listen," he said, "not to speak; I came 
to seek counsel and to be edified." Nothing 
that he said went to the hearts of the people 
so much as thCvSe words. * ' Did you hear 



156 THE cure; of ARS. 

how the great preacher put himself under 
the feet of our Cur6 ? ' ' they remarked after 
the short sermon. 

Pere I^acordaire was never, perhaps, more 
eloquent than in that village pulpit. The 
presence of the humble priest, whom he 
looked upon as a singularly favored servant 
of God, inspired him with accents of the most 
penetrating unction. The Cure was charmed 
to enthusiasm, and shed tears as he listened 
to the brilliant diction and elevated sentiments 
of the orator, whose genius enchanted him. 
*^How can I ever dare to enter my pulpit 
after this!" he exclaimed, when Pere Lacor- 
daire met him. ''I feel like that prince who 
made the Pope ride on his horse, and never 
dared get upon him afterward himself." 

When the two servants of God were say- 
ing farewell, there was a struggle as to who 
should bless the other, and at last they com- 
promised it b^^ each kneeling in turn to 
receive the blessing of the other. The Cure 
of Ars stood on the road looking after his 
guest until the white habit was out of sight. 
Then he turned back, and with tears glisten- 
ing in his eyes murmured: "It has been a 
happy day!" The saintly Dominican, on his 



VISITORS TO ARS. 1 57 

side, carried away a deep and lasting im- 
pression of the virtues of the Cure of Ars, 
and always spoke of him as ''a saint.'* 

The venerable and learned Dr. Ullathorne, 
one of the great lights of the Church in 
England, said to the present writer : * ^ The 
Cure of Ars gave me a greater impression of 
sanctity than any man I ever met.'' The 
Abbe Comballot was seen sobbing on his 
knees in tfie church after he had spoken 
with the holy priest; and when a friend 
approached him anxiously, and inquired the 
cause of his grief, he exclaimed : ' ^ I weep 
to think that I should have grown gray 
before coming to see this wonderful man. 
He is a saint! he is a saint!" The holiest 
priests and religious all felt^ alike on com- 
ing into communication with the great servant 
of God. He alone was unconscious of any- 
thing that entitled him to esteem or admiration. 
He would sometimes laugh in his gentle way 
when proofs of the world's opinion were 
thrust upon him. *' These good people are 
silly," he would say. Sometimes he fancied 
honestly that they must be mad. 



158 THK cure: of ARS. 



XVIII. 

RBI.IC - HUNTKRS. 

A mark of veneration that was particularly 
disagreeable to the Cure of Ars was the 
desire to possess relics of him, which led 
people to cut off bits of his clothes. He 
used, on leaving the confessional, to take off 
his surplice and throw it on the low wall of the 
cemetery as he passed into the presbytery; 
but the people took to cutting it so freely 
that it had to be constantly renewed, and he 
was at last obliged to keep it on him in 
order to preserve it. It was the same thing 
with his hat : they clipped it till it was not 
fit to be seen; and as he could not keep 
renewing it, he soon gave up wearing a hat 
altogether. Pilgrims, chiefly women, were 
generally provided with a pair of scissors to 
operate on his soutane when they got a 
chance. They actually pushed their audacity 
so ^far as to cut off bits of his hair. 

Nothing that the holy man possessed or 
used was sacred to these relic-hunters. They 



PORTRAITS OF THK CUR^. 1 59 

took his little pictures out of his breviary ; 
and when these were all gone they tore out 
leaves of the book itself, until at last it 
became necessary for him to hide it. They 
rummaged in his house, they purloined his 
pens, his ink-bottle — everything they could 
1^3^ their hands on. They pulled the straw 
out of his poor mattress; when there was 
nothing left that could be conveniently carried 
away, they cut and hacked the few pieces 
of furniture in his poverty-stricken room; so 
ruthlessly did they practise this unconscionable 
theft that his table and chair had to be 
replaced several times. 



XIX. 

PORTRAITS OF THK CURfe. 

Another trial that his humility had to con- 
tend with was the frequent attempts that 
were made to steal his likeness. One photog- 
rapher after another tried to catch it; but 
the holy man seemed to know instinctively what 
they were at, and always contrived to baffle 
them. One artist drew the likeness from 



l6o THE cure; of ARS. 

memory, but not very successfully. At last 
M. Cabuchet, a painter of considerable talent 
and a devout Christian, came to Ars, 
resolved to paint the Cure's portrait in spite 
of him. He seated himself in front of the 
railings during the catechism instruction, and 
worked away, concealed, as he imagined, by 
the persons in front of him ; but about the 
third morning, to his surprise and discomfi- 
ture, the Cure stooped forward in the middle 
of his discourse, and said: **Come now, my 
friend, 3'OU have been giving us all distrac- 
tions long enough. That will do!'' M. 
Cabuchet disappeared for some days, and then 
returned to the attack, thinking the Cure, who 
had never seen him except on this occasion, 
would have forgotten his face. But here 
again he was disappointed. M. Vianney at 
once spied him at work, and asked him 
humorously if he had nothing to do at home. 
^^M. le Cure," replied the artist, ^'one 
would think you want to put me to the 
door." — "I have a mind to excommunicate 
you!" retorted the Cure. — ''But what have 
I done? Have I committed a crime?" — ''You 
know well enough what 3"ou have done. You 



PORTRAITS OF THK CUR^ l6l 

have been giving me distractions all the 
morning. ' ' 

Fortunately, M. Cabuchet proved a match 
for the saint in obstinacy, and succeeded in 
capturing a likeness which conveys a faithful, 
though of course inadequate, idea of his 
countenance. The angelic expression of the 
limpid blue eyes, with their glance alternately 
tender and piercing, compassionate and severe, 
— one moment veiled by tears, the next 
giving out sparks of fire ; the smile full of 
humor and innocent happiness, — all this was 
beyond the reach of art ; but the delicate 
outline of the features with their strange 
resemblance to Voltaire's, the nimbus of flow- 
ing white hair, the pose of the head droop- 
ing slightly on the breast from constant habit 
of adoration,— all these have been transmitted 
to us. Those who knew the Cure of Ars 
say that his eyes were unlike any others 
they ever beheld ; they describe their expression 
as so luminous and intense, so full of fire 
when he spoke of the love of God, that the 
word ' ' supernatural ' ' came instinctively to 
your mind. In looking at an impenitent 
sinner, they struck terror into his conscience; 
but marvellous to sa}^ they never frightened 



1 62 THE CURE OF ARS. 

any one. There was a majest}^ a light of 
divine peace on his brow that shone visibly, 
and his smile was so beautiful that it often 
melted the most indiflferent to tears. 

M. Vianney's portrait was reproduced in 
a variety of forms, and in course of time 
was exhibited in the shop windows for the 
moderate consideration of two cents. This 
price set upon his features amused the Cure 
highl3^ He would say to strangers : ''You 
see, my caricature is to be had for two cents. 
These good people know my real value.'' 



XX. 

HIS WILIv. 

A more startling proof of the real value 
that was set upon him came to the holy 
man from Dardill}^, his native village. The 
inhabitants had never ceased to regret his 
refusal to remain amongst them ; and when 
he had reached the appointed age of three 
score and ten, it occurred to them to try 
and secure at least the privilege of having 
him laid to rest in their midst ; so they 



HIS WII.I.. 163 

wrote and begged him to make his will to 
this effect. The gentle soul was astonished 
that any one should care what became of 
his poor body, but he at once complied with 
the request. Unluckily for Dardilly, however, 
Ars heard of it, and rose in arms to protest. 
The Bishop joined with the parish, and im- 
plored the Cure not to leave after death the 
flock he had served so long in life. 

His amazement at ' ' all this rumpus about 
a miserable old carcass ' ' was beyond words ; 
but the wish of his superior was, of course, 
law to him, and he immediately made a new 
will. Dardilly, however, resolved to dispute 
this. It collected a fund to defray the ex- 
penses of an action against Ars for ** undue 
influence,*' and sent a deputation of nota- 
bilities to Lyons to defend what it called its 
** rights." But this generous warlike attitude 
had no other result than to show what the 
estimate of the world was as to the sanctity 
of the Cur6 of Ars. He himself seems to 
have been wholly astonished at the affair, 
and to have rather enjoyed the touch of 
grim humor that was mingled with the rev- 
erence and the love displayed in this stand-up 
fight for his body. 



164 THE CURE OF ARS. 



XXI. 

HIS KIXDXESS AND PURITY. 

But the world did not simply hold him in 
reverence as "a saint " : it loved him as a 
man. He was, in truth, the most lovable of 
human beings. His simple, human kindness 
drew all hearts to him. It was the kindness 
of a heart naturally tender and lo\nng, and 
made still more so b}' the love of God. 
Those who lived with him used to say to 
one another that M. Vianne}- had on earth 
the same heart that he would some da}^ have 
in heaven, so large was it, so indulgent, so 
divinely compassionate for ever^^ form of suf- 
fering. Severe even to inhumanity toward 
himself, the Cure was as careful as a mother 
of every one around him. 

He was constantly on the watch to spare 
his missionaries fatigue ; he would take pains 
to guard them from a disappointment or an 
annoyance, as if they were little children 
who claimed his utmost indulgence ; he treated 
his own poor body as he would not have 



i 



HIS KINDNESS AND PURITY. 1 65 

treated a vicious beast, but he was frightened 
to see the health of his missionaries exposed 
to the least danger. Having heard one of 
them coughing at night prayers, when the 
devotions were over he hurried off bareheaded 
to the Father's house, under a drenching 
rain, to tell him to rest in the morning. *^I 
will take the little catechism class in your 
place," he said; you are coughing, and it 
will fatigue you to give the instruction." He 
used to come out of the confessional and. 
ascend the pulpit to preach in place of a 
priest who had a cough ; and when the latter 
vehemently protested against this ''usurpation," 
the Curfe laughingly replied : ' ' Then I will 
pray St. Philomena to give me your sore 
throat!" Having noticed one day that a 
Father had no warm cloak at the beginning 
of winter, he had one made for him in: 
secret. He saw another going home in the- 
wet without an umbrella, and the next day 
a good strong one appeared mysteriously in 
the Father's room ; the Cur6 had sent into 
the neighboring town for it. He was always 
playing these tricks on his fellow-laborers. 
He practised the natural virtues as diligently 
almost, as the supernatural. 



1 66 THK CURE) OF ARS. 

Amongst the latter there was perhaps none 
that shone with a more heavenly light than 
his purity. It was more than supernatural : 
it was angelic. He who lived among sinners, 
— whose mind was perpetually filled with 
images of vice held up before it by souls 
who came to him with their burden of shame 
and guilt, — he who lived in an atmosphere 
of vice, was so pure that the very name of 
impurity made him shudder like the touch 
of fire. The secret, he always said, for keep- 
ing this angelic virtue untarnished was con- 
stant mortification, unmerciful cruelty to the 
body, fasting, cold, watchings — everything that 
nature abhors and the flesh shrinks from. 
Those who heard him speak from the altar 
or in the pulpit on the sin which our Saviour 
specially expiated in His scourging, declared 
that it was awful to see him, so completely 
did he appear to participate in the horror 
with which the vile sin inspired the suffering 
Redeemer, and in the pain it inflicted on His 
divine human flesh bleeding and quivering at 
the pillar. It was as if an angel who had 
been present at the mystery of the Flagellation 
were trying to make men understand the 
loathsomeness and the wickedness of the sin 



HIS KINDNESS AND PURITY. 1 67 

that had made that martyrdom of the God- 
man necessary. 

His beautifully expressive countenance would 
portray in every feature the emotions of his 
soul. He whose exceeding purity enabled him 
to see more clearly than others the unbear- 
able purity of the Most Holy, saw also with 
the illiuninated eye of faith the blackness of 
the sin that defiles the soul like leprosy, and 
his language in describing it cut into the 
consciences of his hearers like a sword. He 
found the most striking images to illustrate 
it, and he intensified their effect by his 
gestures, his enunciation : the tears would 
stream from his eyes, as, clasping and wring- 
ing his hands, he lifted his face toward the 
crucifix and cried out in broken sentences 
for mercy on sinners. ''Ah, Jesus! Jesus! 
Jesus ! Blessed crucified One, torn and bruised 
and streaming with blood, pity the poor 
creatures that are a prey to this devouring 
fire ! Pour out that Precious Blood on them, 
and quench those flames of hell ! . . . Ah, my 
children, if you knew what you are doing 
when you sin I If you could see what you 
are doing to Jesus, what pleasure you are 
giving the devils, what unspeakable torments 



1 68 THE CURfe OF ARS. 

you are preparing for yourselves for all eter- 
nity ! . . . Ah, divine Purity ! if men did only 
know Thee !" 

But nothing can give any idea of what 
the spoken words were. * ' I often wrote down 
his instructions/' said one who habitually 
assisted at them, ' * but when I read them 
afterward it was no longer the same ; the 
words seemed to have frozen as they came 
from my pencil. From his lips they were 
like fire/' 



XXII. 

HIS AUSTKRII'IKS. 

The Cur6 of Ars used to say all his life 
that the mortifications most efficacious for 
preserving the virtue of purity and obtaining 
the gift of prayer were fasting and watching. 
He carried these so far himself that it was 
a miracle how he lived. The poverty of his 
life amounted to destitution. For years he 
never had a fire lighted in his kitchen ; 
Catherine Lassagne cooked his potatoes for 
him once a week. Those who were permitted 



HIS AUSTERITIES. 1 69 

to see his room said that you felt as if you 
were entering a sanctuary. It was in truth 
a sanctuary of every evangelical virtue, of 
prayer and poverty. The mere aspect of it 
often converted souls. The notary who, after 
M. Vianney's death, was sent to take an 
inventory of the furniture in the presbytery, 
wrote to a friend : * ' I shall always remember 
that poor room, where we had the happiness 
of standing together one day in October, 1859; 
I shall often recall that poor bed, which 
was a stepping - stone to heaven ; that little 
table with its earthenware bowl, and the 
piece of bread, scarcely touched, that served 
for the last meal of the holy man. . . . '' 

The Cur6 of Ars, who usually designated 
his body as * ' my carcass, ' * used toward the 
end of his life speak of it as " the corpse ' ' ; 
he treated it, in truth, as if it were already 
dead. He suffered for years from internal 
pains that were frequently agonizing, but he 
paid no attention to them ; he drove on the 
corpse without the least compunction. He 
was a martyr to rheumatism ; in his last 
years it crippled him, and sometimes made 
the effort of walking, rising, moving his 
limbs in any way, almost impossible ; but 



lyo THK CURfi OF ARS. 

this never propitiated him to the poor corpse. 
*'Adam is always well enough!'' he would 
answer jocosely when they urged him to 
have recourse to certain remedies. He main- 
tained that mortification cost him nothing ; 
that it was ''only a habit,'' and one so full 
of sweetness and balm that you could not do 
without it once you had begun to practise 
it. He had all his life denied himself every 
innocent indulgence — such as smelling a 
flower, driving away the flies, drinking when 
he was thirsty, leaning against a chair when 
he was on his knees, etc., — and he continued 
this self-denial to the end of his life. 

He suffered intensely from cold, but he 
never allowed himself the smallest relief 
under it. During the last severe winter of 
his life, one of the missionary Fathers, who 
knew that he suffered a little martyrdom from 
cold feet, surreptitiously introduced into the 
confessional a hot- water pan. It was placed 
under a sliding board, and the trick succeeded 
to perfection ; the dear old Cur6 used to 
delight his wily friends by exclaiming with 
emotion, ''How good God is! In spite of 
the intense cold, I have had my feet quite 



HIS AUSTERITIES. 171 

warm this winter. They have not been frozen 
once I ' ' 

Old age spared him few of its infirmities ; 
but the more his ''corpse*' suffered, the 
brighter his soul seemed to burn. His doctor 
declared that he had in him the beginning 
of several organic diseases, some of which 
had developed, and were making him suffer 
terribly as time went on. For years those 
who saw him near were witnesses of the truth 
of this, though he did his utmost to hide it. 
''We have seen him again and again," de- 
clares one of them, "arrested in the middle of 
a conversation that he was carrying on with 
charming gayety ; after a violent effort at 
self-control, he would grow livid in the face, 
and tremble, and at last sink into a chair, 
doubled down with pain. In answer to our 
eager inquiries he would smile sweetly, and 
when he regained power to speak say, 'Yes, 
I am suffering a little,' and go on with the 
conversation as if it had not been inter- 
rupted." A holy priest who enjoyed his 
confidence asked him once if he had not 
offered himself up as a victim for his flock. 
"Perhaps," replied the Cure, "I did say to 
God some years ago : ' Grant me the conver- 



172 THK CURfe OF ARS. 

sion of my parish, and I consent to suffer 
whatever You like to the end of my life.*' 
He was heard one day exclaiming, * ' I would 
gladly consent to suffer the most excruciating 
pains for a hundred years if God would deign 
to grant me the conversion of my parish ! ' ' 

It would seem as if God had accepted the 
generous offer, for His servant suffered almost 
unintermittent agonies of one sort or another. 
Heat affected Him as severely as cold, and 
only God knew what this trial alone must 
have been to him during those long hours 
in the confessional, through the sultry heat 
of summer, when even those waiting in the 
open church were compelled to push their 
way out of the stifling atmosphere to get a 
breath of air ; but the Cure of Ars never 
allowed himself this momentary relief. When 
the hour for his escape came he would stagger 
out of the church, gasping, his limbs hardly 
supporting him till he reached his room. 
Here he would fall on the bed, quivering 
and panting like a hunted creature, too sick 
to swallow any food ; and there he would lie 
until it was time to return to the confessional. 

Sometimes in this interval of release he 
made four or five vain efforts to get up ; 



HIS AUSTKRITIKS. 1 73 

yet, though he was too weak to stand, when 
the time came to return to the church the 
brave spirit invariably conquered the fainting 
body, and down he went, often stumbling 
and falling on the staircase, but never turn- 
ing back ; and grace, that perpetual worker 
of miracles, always triumphed over nature, 
and carried him to the end of his day's 
work —his day's martyrdom. The natural 
elasticity of his temperament was, as the 
village doctor said, extraordinary. When he 
was run down to the last stage of weakness, 
he would rally his nervous power to the 
rescue, and lift up his prostrate strength by 
sheer force of will, in a manner that seemed 
miraculous. 

The Cure of Ars never relaxed his aus- 
terities out of condescension for his failing 
health and exhausted body. When the poor 
* ' corpse ' ' was so spent that he had to lean 
against something to prevent its falling, he 
would lash at it with sharp iron disciplines 
till the wall and the floor were spattered 
with blood. He wore a coarse hair-shirt 
habitually, and to this comparatively comfort- 
able penance he frequently added a steel 
chain, or a coarse knotted rope fastened 



174 ^HE CURE OF ARS. 

round his waist with a rough iron clasp. 
Catherine Lassagne attested having found hid 
away in the bottom of a cupboard in his 
room four iron disciplines, the end of each 
chain being armed with sharp steel points 
or heavy knobs of lead. And these instru- 
ments of torture were actually polished by 
use ; some of them were * ' as bright as silver, ' * 
other witnesses declared. 

Catherine lyassagne, in her simplicity, ven- 
tured on one occasion to remonstrate with 
the servant of God for being so pitiless to 
the little flesh his perpetual fasting had left 
on his body. The answer was characteristic 
of his own simplicity. "I am obliged," he 
said, "to give myself just two or three 
touches of a discipline in the morning to 
make the corpse go. That quickens the 
fibres. Have you never seen bear-leaders? 
You know how they tame those vicious 
beasts — by giving them hard blows with a 
stick. This is how one masters the body 
and tames the old Adam.'' 

The ' ' two or three touches ' ' meant long 
and steady flagellation. This was attested by 
persons who occasionally had been permitted 
to spend the night at the presbytery, and 



HIS AUSTKRITIKS. 175 

who heard the noise of the metal scourge 
falling on the bleeding shoulders for two 
hours at a time, — the executioner only paus- 
ing now and then, apparently from fatigue. 
One of these unseen witnesses of the nocturnal 
flagellations, after listening to the blows for 
two long hours, burst into tears, exclaiming, 
''Will he never leave off!'' 

The Cure went one day to the village 
blacksmith, and ordered a chain to be made 
after a particular pattern, giving him some 
explanation concerning its purpose, which 
put him off the scent, as the man afterward 
said ; but he happened to show the chain to 
some one who at once detected the truth, 
and said that the size and weight of the 
instrument made him shudder. Toward the 
end of his life the holy Cure left off using 
the heaviest disciplines, probably because his 
arm no longer had strength to wield them. 
But he continued to the last to use lighter 
ones, and to wear a chain or knotted rope 
under his hair-shirt. What he never relaxed 
in the slightest degree was his practice of 
inward mortification, and of those external 
ones that were presented to him by others. 
The reputation of his sanctity, which grew 



176 THE CURS of ARS. 

every year, kept multiplying the demands 
made upon him, and increasing the impatience 
of the crowds, who, seeing how frail he was, 
were more eager to speak with him, lest by 
waiting they should miss the chance. 

Feeble as he was, the Curfe of Ars contrived 
to satisfy everybody, and no murmuring word, 
no passing look of impatient weariness, ever 
ruffled the serenity of his countenance and 
manner. He was often heard to say that he 
had naturally a hot temper, and that it 
needed constant vigilance and self-restraint to 
keep himself in order. If this were in any 
degree true, he must have begun the fight 
and won the victory very early indeed ; for 
no one had ever observed a trace of violence 
in him even in his childhood. The inconsid- 
erate eagerness of the pilgrims who thronged 
the church afforded him a daily exercise of 
patience ; for they would push him so rudely 
in their desire to touch his soutaiie, or even 
catch his eye, that he was frequently in 
danger of falling, and sometimes must have 
been thrown down had not his curate pro- 
tected and supported him. 



HIS END. 177 



XXIII. 
HIS END. 

But the end was approaching. The night 
was drawing near, which was to be followed 
by the dawn of that blessed day toward 
which the faithful servant had been journey- 
ing for seventy-three long years. His people 
saw that he was failing ; they saw the sum- 
mons in the increased weakness of the frail 
figure, that was now bent and trembling ; 
they heard it in the feebleness of the beloved 
voice, that had grown almost inaudible ; they 
heard it in the cough that hacked him in- 
cessantly. But he himself was permitted to 
see more clearly than any one that the day 
of rest was approaching. In the summer of 
1858 he wrote a letter (still extant) in which 
he said that he had only another year to 
live. 

In the month of May of 1859 he invited 
his parishioners to come and hear a sennon 
on a particular evening. They answered the 
call, as usual, with alacrity, and crowded 



1 78 THK CURfe OF ARS. 

the church to overflowing. The pastor 
addressed them in accents of extraordinary 
fervor and solemnity ; he implored them to 
be contrite for their sins, to love God, and 
to forgive all who had wronged them. Then 
he said : ' ' When Moses felt that he was 
about to die, he called his people together, 
reminded them of the numberless mercies 
that God had showered on them, exhorted 
them to be faithful and grateful, and showed 
them the Promised lyand. Permit me to do 
likewise, my brethren ; and let me remind 
you of how good our divine Saviour has 
been to you. ..." He went on to recapitu- 
late the many spiritual advantages that had 
been granted to the village — such as the 
presence of the Sisters of Charity, the Chris- 
tian Brothers, the Missionaries, etc., — and he 
besought them to make good use of these 
opportunities for themselves and their children. 
He then thanked them all for the generosity 
they had displayed in subscribing toward a 
fund for building a church in honor of his 
dear St. Philomena. ' ' O my children, you 
have done a beautiful thing in this!'' he 
cried out with emotion ; * ^ but, indeed, when- 



HIS END. 179 

ever I have gone to you for help, you have 
never refused me — never ! . . . " 

These tender and touching thanks were his 
last public pastoral utterance ; they were the 
Nunc dimittis of the old priest in the temple 
where he had grown gray waiting for his 
lyord. His people were greatly affected, but 
they did not understand the message of bene- 
diction and farewell the words were meant to 
convey. They had seen their pastor so feeble, 
so suffering for the last twenty years, that 
they had come to think he would go on 
forever as he was, sustained miraculously 
under a burden of work which divided 
amongst ten priests would have still been 
heavy. '* Monsieur le Cure was not like other 
men: he was a living miracle." There was 
no reason why death should ever prevail over 
those frail limbs, over that shadow of a body 
whose vitality was all superhuman ; wh}^ it 
should ever silence that feeble voice which 
had so long been the medium of grace and 
mercy to men ; why it should quench those 
eyes that vShone like stars in the emaciated 
face, reflecting the glance of Jesus in their 
sweetness, their purity, and their divine com- 
passion for sinners. 



l80 THE CURfe OF ARS. 

Nevertheless, the Cure of Ars was to die. 
The heat of the month of July in the year 
1859, was tropical, and the servant of God 
was more overpowered by it than he had 
ever been before. The crowds that knelt 
round his confessional were so distressed by 
the sultry atmosphere of the church that 
they could hardly bear it ; it suffocated them, 
and they kept escaping continually into the 
courtyard to breathe. But the Cure never 
moved ; he sat on from soon after midnight 
till eleven in the morning, and again from 
one o'clock till eight in the evening. The 
cough from which he had suffered for five and 
twenty years was now almost incessant ; the 
want of air irritated his lungs, and he kept 
constantly coughing a weak, short cough that 
sounded like a little sob or gasp, and was 
exceedingly painful and wearing. When a 
person who noticed how he suffered from it 
pitied him, he replied with a smile: ''Yes, 
it is very tiresome ; it wastes so much of my 
time." But when urged to give himself some 
respite from the terrible strain on his lungs, 
he replied gently, shaking his head: ''We 
shall rest ourselves in Paradise." 

On Friday, the 29th of July, he went 



Bi 



HIS END. i8r 

through his ordinary routine of duties — sat 
over seventeen hours in the confessional, gave 
his instruction on the catechism, said night 
prayers in the pulpit, made a little exhorta- 
tion to his flock, and then left the church. 
But on entering the presbytery he sank upon 
a chair, and murmured faintly : * * I am worn 
out!'' (^Je n^en peux plMs.) Many a time of 
late years he had been heard to say, half- 
jestingly : ''The sinners will wear out the 
sinner ! ' ' The words had come true : they 
had worn him out at last. 

The Father who had accompanied him from 
the church now assisted him to his room, 
saw him throw himself on the bed, and then 
left him alone. He was anxious and tenderly 
concerned for the servant of God, but he felt 
as if he dared not stay beside him ; he did 
not even venture to listen at the door. This 
one night — this last night before the dying 
man entered on those four days of agony 
that preceded his death — was therefore left 
sacred. God kept it sacred between Himself 
and His servant ; there was to be no witness 
to their intercourse ; no human eye was to 
penetrate the secret of what passed between 
the faithful servant and his Master, nor to 



1 82 THK CURE) OF ARS. 

trespass within that room where angels were 
assuredly gathered round the penitential couch, 
which had witnessed so many conflicts with 
the powers of evil, so many victories of grace 
over nature. 

The Angelus rang at midnight, but the 
confessor did not come to the confessional. 
At one o'clock he made an eiBfort to rise 
and go down to the church ; but in vain ; 
he fell back on his mattress. He had used 
up his last bit of strength ; the poor body, 
spent with hard work and harder treatment, 
had come to the end of its powers. The 
Cur 6 called out in a feeble voice for help. 
One who was walking close at hand heard 
him, and hurried in and asked what was the 
matter. ' ' I think this is my poor end ' ' 
(ma pauvre fin)^ answered M. Vianney. — 
^' Shall I go for help? '' — ^' No : don't disturb 
anybody. It is not worth while." 

The night wore on just like any other 
night. The crowd of penitents — those peni- 
tents whose unconscious cruelty had done him 
to death — were waiting below for the con- 
fessor. They were told that he could not 
come, that he was dying. The words spread 
through the village, and were received first 



HIS KND. 183 

with incredulity, then with despair. ^'Mon- 
sieur le Cur6 dying ! Impossible ! There will 
be a miracle ! ' ' But he who had worked so 
many miracles for his flock was not to per- 
form this one. 

When the day broke, and the hour came 
at which the Cur6 was in the habit of say- 
ing his Mass, he made no attempt to rise ; 
he was in great pain. '*You are suffering?'' 
said the curate. The servant of God made a 
slight movement with his head full of resigned 
assent. *'We are in hopes St. Philomena 
will obtain your cure,'' said one who was 
present; *'we are going to invoke her with 
all oin: might, that she may obtain your 
recovery as she did eighteen years ago." — 
**0 St. Philomena can do nothing now!" 
was the smiling response. When these words 
were repeated to the anxious crowd below, it 
was as if all who heard them had been 
stricken in their dearest affections. The grief 
of the people was indescribable. 

Oh, when we complain of the little love 
there is in the world we say what is not 
true 1 It is not the will or the power to love 
that is wanting amongst men ; it is the rarity 
of any subject capable of kindling it. The 



184 THE CURfe OF ARS. 

coldest and worst of us are ready enough to 
love when we find a fellow-creature worthy 
of love, and none are so worthy of it as the 
saints ; for they most resemble God, the 
centre, the source, the beginning and the 
end of love — I^ove itself. The world, for all 
its coldness and sinfulness, is quick to recog- 
nize the beauty of holiness, to worship it, 
to love it. The wicked ones may gaze on it 
from afar ; they may be afraid to draw near 
lest it should conquer them utterly, and 
compel them to the only tribute of love it 
can accept — imitation ; but they can not see 
it even in the distance without falling under 
its divine spell. Yes, the saints have been 
loved in this world as no other class of men 
have been loved. They, more than all others, 
have been permitted a foretaste of heaven by 
realizing here below the truth of that blessed 
mystery, God is I^ove. 

It would, no doubt, have been a great 
surprise to the humility of the Cure of Ars 
if he could have witnessed the overwhelming 
and universal grief of his flock during those 
days that he lay dying. It would have 
touched his tender, affectionate heart to see 
how they loved him — for their grief was, in 



HIS END. 185 

truth, the measure of their love ; but, above 
all, it would have gladdened his apostolic 
heart to see the manifestation of their piety 
and faith that it drew forth ; for they prayed 
without ceasing, day and night ; they made 
vows to all the saints in heaven ; they be- 
sieged the blessed souls in purgatory ; they 
sent messengers in haste to distant shrines, 
to monasteries and convents ; they gave alms, 
and were lavish in promises of alms and 
penances and pilgrimages. But the miracle 
was not to be granted : the confessor's crown 
was ready. 

On Tuesday evening M. Vianney asked for 
the last Sacraments. It so happened that a 
great number of priests and religious from 
distant dioceses were at Ars just then, and 
their presence gave an additional solemnity 
to the august rite, at which the entire parish 
assisted ; for the church, the court, the wide 
square outside the presbytery, were crowded 
with the people, kneeling in fervent prayer, 
from the time the bell began to toll, an- 
nouncing the farewell visit of Jesus to His 
servant. Just as He entered the room, one 
who was dear to the dying man came close 
to him, and with clasped hands implored 



1 86 THK CURfi OF ARS. 

him to ask Our I^ord to spare him yet a 
while. The Cure turned his luminous eyes 
on the suppliant, and without uttering a word 
made him understand that it could not be. 
Tears trickled slowly down his cheeks as he 
fixed his gaze on the divine Host and re- 
ceived It into his heart. He said nothing ; 
he uttered no edifying words ; he was in 
death, as he had been through life, childlike 
in his simplicity. 

A deep silence followed. The crowd even 
outside hushed every sound, lest it should 
disturb the peace of that holy death-chamber. 
But they expected a sign from the dying 
saint. The people had gone on hoping for a 
miracle to the last ; and when this seemed 
inexorably denied, they looked at least for 
some sublime manifestation of holiness which 
should signalize the departure of their pastor, 
making his death diJBFerent from the deaths 
of other men. Here again they were to be 
disappointed. The Cure of Ars was to die 
as simply as ' ' the little child, ' * whom he 
had resembled all his life. That bare, un- 
furnished room of his, which had been so 
long a battlefield between the forces of heaven 
and hell, — where demons had mocked and 



HIS KND. 187 

threatened and tormented him, where angels 
had ministered to him, and the Queen of 
Angels defended and consoled him ; — that 
room where such wonderful scenes had taken 
place, where so many mysteries had been 
accomplished, — was now as quiet, as com- 
monplace as the cradle of a child. 

A few hours after Extreme Unction and 
Viaticum had been administered, the Bishop 
of the diocese, who had been summoned in 
haste, arrived at Ars, breathless, eager, like 
a man who has ridden for dear life, and 
knows not whether he is yet in time. He 
approached the presbytery praying out loud, 
and pushed on into the house, scarcely seem- 
ing conscious of the kneeling crowd that 
made way for him. The moment he entered 
the room a beautiful smile overspread M. 
Vianney's face, and he made a gesture as 
though he would have risen to receive the 
prelate ; but the latter prevented him, and, 
bending over him, embraced him tenderly 
and gave him his cross to kiss. When he 
withdrew it, it was wet with the tears of the 
dying man. The Bishop remained some time 
praying and weeping by the bedside of the 
servant of God, and then went softly out of 



l88 THE CURfe OF ARS. 

the room, blessing the crowd in silence as 
he passed through them. 

The hours went slowl}^ by. Within and 
without, the people continued watching in 
pra3'er. Two hours after midnight, Abbe 
Monnin, seeing that the end was at hand, 
began the prayers for the departing. As he 
pronounced the words, ' * Ma^- the saints of 
Ood come to meet him, and conduct him 
into the holy city,'^ Jean - Marie Vianney 
gently breathed his last, and entered into 
the presence of his Lord. 

Then the silence which had hung like a 
pall over the village was broken, and the 
people rent the air with wailing and lamenta- 
tion. It seemed impossible that it could be 
true, this irreparable loss that had befallen 
them! ''Monsieur le Cure is dead!'' How 
were the}^ to go on living without him, — 
without that holy presence that was as the 
visible shadow of the divine Presence in their 
midst ; without that wise and tender friend, 
whose sympathy was always open to them 
like a mother's arms, whose heart was full 
of compassion for every misery of their souls, 
whose hand had the healing power to touch 
every infirmity of their bodies ! The Angelus 



HIS KND. 189 

would no longer sound from the little cliurch 
tower at midnight to let the sinners know 
that Monsieur le Cure was in the confessional. 
It seemed as if there would be no more 
grace to be had, now that their saintly 
pastor had left them. 

The pilgrims who had come from distant 
places to confess to him, to seek his inspired 
guidance, were above all inconsolable ; they 
had lost an opportunity that could never be 
recalled ; and as they joined in the De Pro- 
fundis that the broken - hearted villagers 
sobbed out together in the church, they 
seemed to hear the Angel of Death uttering 
the hopeless sentence : ' ' Too late, too late ! 
Ye cannot enter now!'' That confessional, 
where year after year so many thousands of 
souls had been cleansed of their leprosy and 
sent away whole ; where so many miracles of 
grace had been performed ; where the powers 
of darkness had been beaten by night and 
by day ; — that blessed tribunal of stupendous 
mercy was empty ; the bent, frail figure of 
the dear old priest would never be seen 
entering it again. What were the poor sinners 
to do? How those belated ones regretted 
not having come sooner ! A few days earlier, 



igO THE CURfe OF ARS. 

and they might have received absolution from 
the '* saint ;^^ but now it was too late. Never 
again would the divine Ego te absolvo be 
pronounced by that feeble voice, whose con- 
soling accents had penetrated into guilty souls 
like dew from heaven, bidding the penitent 
sinner to *'go in peace.'' 

The desolation of those present w^ho had 
**come too late*' found an echo in many 
other souls at a distance, who, on hearing of 
the death of the Cure of Ars, were stricken 
with remorse for not having hastened sooner 
to seek at his hands the miracle of mercy 
of which they stood in need. But the servant 
of God, like unto his kind Master, had 
*' compassion on the multitude," and continued 
to speak to souls from his grave, to touch 
sinners to repentance and the sick to healing. 
Even when dead he yet spoke, and exercised 
that zeal which had burned him away, a 
living holocaust on the altar of divine love. 
Innumerable and extraordinary spiritual graces 
were received by the pilgrims at Ars : hard- 
ened sinners were suddenly converted ; faithful 
souls were quickened to unwonted fervor, in- 
spired with generous desires of self-sacrifice ; 



HIS END. 191 

a current of faith and ardent piety was felt 
all through the population. 

Jean - Baptiste Vianney had been venerated 
during his life as a highly favored servant 
of God, and death now gave a supreme con- 
secration to this universal reverence, and 
called forth one of those manifestations of 
faith for which we must go back many 
centuries to find a parallel. By common 
consent, without any inter - communication 
among the priests, the church bells of all the 
neighboring villages began to toll as soon as 
the news of his death became known, and 
all the populations hastened in to Ars. The 
poor room where the dead pastor lay was 
very small, and the stair leading to it too 
narrow to give convenient passage to the 
crowds who wanted to see him, to touch 
him with rosaries and medals ; so he was 
carried down to a room on the ground-floor, 
which was turned into a chapelle ardente^ and 
decorated with such simple pomp as became 
the presence of the priest whose love of my 
Lady Poverty had emulated that of Saint 
Francis. Coarse white sheets were hung on 
the walls, and flowers and green garlands 
pinned on them by loving hands, and many 



192 THE CURE OF ARS. 

candles were lighted. Here for two days and 
two nights thousands of people kept passing 
before ' ' the dead saint ' ' (as popular instinct 
called him), kneeling for his blessing, weeping 
and praying. 

It was a wonderful scene to be enacted in 
this France of the nineteenth century. From 
every part of the Empire people of all classes, 
but chiefly the upper ones, flew as fast as 
the fastest trains could carr>^ them to gaze 
once again, or for the first and last time, 
on the face of an old priest who had served 
God with perfect love. That and nothing 
more. Over six thousand strangers came to 
Ars during those forty-eight hours that the 
Cur6 lay there on his last couch. It was a 
spectacle calculated to make the children of 
this world reflect, and compare the reward 
they receive from the world at the end of a 
life of hard service with that which crowns 
the fidelity of the children of God. M. 
Vianney had shunned the applause of men 
as we shun humiliation ; he had hid away 
his good works and his supernatural graces 
as the wicked hide their crimes ; and yet 
here he was, surrounded by such honors as 
kings and princes can not command, and 



HIS KND. 193 

which a deceitful world never bestows on its 
most faithful slaves or most brilliant votaries. 

The heat was intense, but it seemed pow- 
erless to touch the body which penance had 
sublimated in life to the parity of a spirit. 
The features did not change, but the smile 
deepened ; the expression of the face grew 
sweeter, as if it were being gradually trans- 
figured. 

On Saturday at break of day a vast number 
of priests and religious began to arrive. The 
village streets were thronged from the earliest 
hour. A great silence brooded over the 
summer morning. When the time came for 
forming the procession, the crowds fell back, 
making way for the many who were entitled 
to precedence, — everyone accepting with un- 
questioning docility the programme hurriedly 
improvised with a view to orderly decorum. 
But the moment the cofl&n appeared lines 
and precedence were swept away, and there 
followed an explosion of grief that nothing 
could control. Ranks and regulations were 
broken through, the people with a sudden 
movement surging forward as if to embrace 
the coffin, while a sound between a sob and 
a loud cry rose from every heart. There 



194 'J^^^ CURE) OF ARS. 

was not the smallest confusion or disorder, 
but all external array — the symmetry of the 
procession — was at an end, swamped in the 
great wave of emotion that overflowed from 
the sorrowing multitude. 

The Bishop of Lyons pronounced the funeral 
oration, and — in order that, as far as possible, 
it might be heard by all, — he spoke in the 
open air, on the Place in front of the church. 
He took for his text, **Well done, thou good 
and faithful servant ! ' ' It was a beautiful 
discourse; but its eloquence consisted chiefly 
in the deep feeling of the orator, and the 
response that his subject awoke in all his 
hearers. What could he tell them of the 
Cure of Ars that they did not know? His 
life had been a light, a joy and a glory in 
the Church of God ever since, as a little 
shepherd boy, he hugged his wooden Ma- 
donna, and knelt before it in the deep shade 
of the woods, and coaxed away his playmates 
from their games to say the Rosary with him. 
His love for Mary had grown with his 
growth, and as an old priest grown gray in 
the service of the Altar he retained this 
apostolic, childlike devotion to her, luring 
others to her service by the force of his own 



HIS END. 195 

ardent faith. The austerities of his life, his 
heroic penance, his humility, his stupendous 
gift of miracles, — the world had witnessed 
those things for half a century, in spite of 
his vigilant efforts to hide them. He was 
known to be an illiterate man — to have had 
great difficulty in learning enough Latin to 
pass his examinations ; and he was also 
known to have been so divinely illuminated 
that the wisest and the most learned ecclesi- 
astics came to him for advice, and accepted 
his guidance as that of one inspired. 

There were few dry eyes present amongst 
the thousands who were congregated round 
the cofl&n while the Bishop of Lyons poured 
out his sorrow and his consolations to the be- 
reaved flock. He gave the absolution ; the 
body was carried into the church, and placed 
in the Chapel of St. John the Baptist, close 
to the confessional where the Cure of Ars 
had won the confessor's crown and, perhaps, 
the martyr's palm. Then the Requiem Mass 
began. The church was too small to contain 
a twentieth part of the crowd, but those 
outside were kneeling as reverently as those 
within. The beauty and solemnity of the 
scene were things to be felt rather than 



196 THK CURi: OF ARS. 

described. All ranks were confounded, all 
hearts united in the bond of a common faith 
and a common grief. Nobles and mechanics, 
magistrates and peasants, high-born ladies and 
hard-handed working- women, — all knelt close 
together in ardent prayer : a grand illustration 
of the only equality possible here below — the 
equality commanded by charity, by the true 
brotherly love which finds its supreme glorifi- 
cation in the consoling mystery of the Com- 
munion of Saints. 

So they walked through the green village, 
accompanying to his last resting-place the 
faithful and beloved servant who had toiled 
for them to his latest breath, and who was 
now blessing them from the presence of his 
Lord and theirs. 

O holy, gentle-hearted Cur6 of Ars, bless 
us still, and pray for us ; that we too may 
be worthy to receive that joyous welcome, 
*^Well done, thou good and faithful servant: 
enter into the joy of thy I^ord ! " 



L> 



I, 



